0 0 



^ ^ / 



THE CHURCH: 



A SERIES OF DISCOURSES. 



BY 



Eev. SYLVESTER JUDD, 

PASTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH, AUGUSTA, MATNT:. 



' In promoting the influence of Cbristianity, the main duty of an enlightened 
Cinistian at the present day is to labor that it may be better understood ; and the 
views and results to which a few intelligent scholars may have arrived must be 
made tlie common property of the community." — Andrews Norton. 



BOSTON: 
D . 0. C 0 L E S W O R T H Y. 
1857. 



EDITOR'S PEEFACE. 



The publication of this volume of Sermons is the 
result of several considerations. The one which I 
have felt to be most important, and which is entirely 
proper to be stated here, arises from the fact that the 
author himself intended to give some or all of them 
to the press, in connection with others on kindred 
topics, which he was expecting his clerical brethren 
in INIaine would contribute to the object he had in 
view. This purpose appears in a letter which he ad- 
dressed, about a month before his decease, to his 
highly valued friend, Rev. Cazneau Palfrey, of Bel- 
fast. In it he writes as follows : — 

" It has seemed to me that we ought to publish to 
the world some of our Church principles, views, and 
plans. There is a spirit of inquiry awake, yet there is 
hardly a printed word that can be got hold of. Our 
own people, no less than others, need to see the 
thing in print. It is matter to be pondered. The 



IV 



PREFACE. 



'Report' of our State Convention at Portland* 
does not explain itself to anybody. I am sorry no 
' notes ' accompanied it. 

I propose that there be published a book of this 
sort : ' The Church : in a Series of Discourses, by 
several Clergymen of the Unitarian Church of Maine.' 
I am willing to take all the risk of publication. What 
I want is, that any of us, whose minds have been 
exercised on the subject, should give the public a 
Discourse upon it, — you take up one point, I anoth- 
er, and so on. I want we should show a kind of 
organic, unitary front. For my own part, I have 
several Discourses which I might put into such a 
volume." 

I have no special clew to the particular sermons 
which Mr. Judd regarded as best expressing the 
views he desired to commend to general notice, and 
I am not sure that my selection is such a one as he 
would have made for himself. Still, I feel no hesi- 
tation in offering the following Sermons to the public, 
as I can hardly be mistaken in supposing they come 
fully within the scope of the plan indicated in the 
letter from which I have quoted. They appear to 
me to stand symmetrically around the central point 
of interest, and I believe there will be found in them 



See Appendix, Note A. 



PREFACE. V 

a unity and logical connection with each other, and 
an exactness of statement and fulness of illustratiouj 
quite sufficient to enable the general reader to under- 
stand the author's true position on the topics which 
he has treated, and to take from every fair-minded 
person all excuse for any misapprehension or mis- 
representation of his general drift and real aim. 
While they are eminently didactic in their character, 
they are yet wholly unambitious in style, and were, 
in fact, prepared and delivered in the usual course 
of ministerial labor. But the earnestness and pro- 
found sincerity of their tone are calculated to fix the 
attention, when once enlisted, on the great theme 
which he discusses, and hold it until the whole 
series shall be perused. Suchj at least, is the hope 
in which the volume is now committed to the pub- 
lic. 

JOSEPH H. "WILLIAMS. 

Augusta, January 6, 1854. 



CONTENTS. 



SEEMON I. 

PAGE 

CHEISTIAN BAPTISE .... .... 1 

SERMON n. 

GOSPEL COXVEESION . 15 

SERMON m. 

CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS TJNIYEESAL 29 

SERMON lY. 

WHAT IS THE CHUECH ? 48 

SERMON Y. 

BIETH-EELATION TO THE CHUECH 61 

SERMON YL 

THE CHTTECH, ILLUSTEATED BY THE FAMILY AND THE STATE 83 

SERMON Yn. 

THE CHTTECH HEEEDITABLE 103 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON YIII. 

WE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEN, BUT DARE NOT AD3IIT THEM 

TO THE CHURCH 139 

SERMON IX. 

CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS .149 

SERMON X. 

EDUCATION, CONSIDERED AS THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LATT . 173 

SERMON XI. 

" WE THINK IN WORDS " 199 

SERMON XII. 

THE SABBATH SCHOOL . . 225 

SERMON XIIL 

THE COMMUNION 239 

SERMON XIV. 

THE GOSPEL 1 GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE .... 255 



APPENDIX 



273 



SEEMONS. 



SERMON I. 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 

I INDEED BAPTIZE TOU TVITH WATER TXTO REPENTANCE : BUT 
HE THAT COMETH AETEK 3IE IS MIGHTIER THAN I, WHOSE SHOES 
I AM NOT WORTHY TO BEAR : HE SHALL BAPTIZE TOU WITH 
THE HOLT GHOST, AND WITH FIRE. — Matt ui. 11. 

My subject to-day is Baptism. I purpose to. ex- 
plain the meaning of that which so often appears in 
the New Testament under this name. I venture to 
affirm that Christian baptism, that is, the baptism 
introduced and enjoined by Christ, imports a cer- 
tain spiritual effect, and not a watery application ; 
that the essential idea of the term is spiritual ; that 
the use of water is non-essential. 

" Baptizing with fire signifies the cleansing, puri- 
fying, enlightening, beautifying nature of Christ's 
baptism, its vivifying and ennobling power. It is 
represented by fire, says Adam Clark, .^^ because it 
was to illuminate and invigorate the soul, penetrate 
every part, and assimilate the whole to the image of 
God." The Fathers abound in gross and fanciful 
conceptions on the subject. Origen and Lactantius 
supposed there was a river of fire, like the Phlege- 
1 



2 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM 



thon of the heathen, through which men were to 
pass. Chrysostom approaches a more reasonable 
view, when he says the word denotes the superabun- 
dant graces of the spirit. 

" He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and 
with fire." The definite article is wanting in the 
original of the text. The term " Holy Ghost " in 
many cases in the New Testament means holiness, 
or the conjoint product of man's spirit and God's 
spirit. He shall baptize you with holiness and with 
fire, is a form of expression which gives some idea 
of the purport of the passage. " It is impossible," 
says Dr. Furness, " to convey the full force of this 
word Ghost or Spirit in a translation. The original 
word is more comprehensive than the word ^- Spirit." 
It signifies also air, wind ; and the meaning of 
John is, " Water is the symbol of my office, but the 
power of him who is coming after me may be signi- 
fied by far subtler and more searching elements, wind 
and fire." The spirit of the passage, then, I take to 
be this : He shall baptize you with that w^hich is 
holy and pure, with that which cleanses and refines, 
elevates and sanctifies. 

1. Our text, then, affirms that Christ's baptism 
was spiritual, and not aqueous. I indeed baptize 
you with water, but he that cometh after me shall 
baptize you with something else, " with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire.'' John, the forerunner of Christ, 
practised water baptism. Jerusalem, and all Judea, 
and all the region round about Jordan, went out to 
him, and \Vere baptized of him in Jordan. Yet he 
says. One mightier than I approaches, one whose 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



3 



shoes I am not worthy to bear, one so much superior 
to me that I am not fit to perform his most menial 
offices. I indeed baptize you with water, but he 
shall give you a loftier baptism, with the Holy 
Ghost and with fire." He expressly distinguishes 
Christ's baptism from his own ; he characterizes it as 
something greater; nay, his language is pointedly 
significant of the fact that Christ's baptism is not of 
water, but of the spirit. Whether John be deemed 
capable of forming an infallible judgment in the 
case, is a point I shall not discuss. The mothers of 
John and of Jesus were cousins, and for some time 
abode together. Even if we suppose John to have 
been without the aid of supernatural grace, still he 
had the means of knowing much of Christ. Doubt- 
less they often visited each other, and became ac- 
quainted w^ith each other's character and purposes. 
John ingenuously owned the superiority of Christ, 
and fully testified to the greatness of his mission. 
He felt that Christ's baptism would as greatly excel 
his own, as the endowments of the Son of Mary were 
diviner than his. Let me refer to the striking lan- 
guage which he uses. " After me cometh a man 
which is preferred before me, .... and I knew him 
not (i. e. as the Messiah) ; but that he should be made 
manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing 
w^ith water. But he that sent me to baptize with 
water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou 
shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining 
on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the 
Holy Ghost." John, it will be observed, takes ex- 
treme pains to distinguish Christ from himself, espe- 



4 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



cially in this matter of baptism. He speaks of him- 
self continually as a Water-Baptist, and sets Christ 
in contrast as a Spirit-Baptist. He signalizes Christ 
as " he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost." He 
does not call him by name, but speaks of him as 
a man," and then distinguishes him by the unique 
and exalted title of Baptizer with the Holy Ghost. 

2. In the second place, I point to the example of 
Christ. He never practised water baptism. ^' Jesus 
himself baptized not," is the unqualified declaration 
of the Evangelist. Christ did not baptize John, but 
John baptized Christ, that is, with water. John 
wished Christ to baptize him, but he would not. To 
none of his disciples, to no one even of the twelve, 
nor to Martha or Mary, did Christ ever apply the 
baptism of water, either in the way of sprinkling, 
pouring, or immersion. He did, indeed, employ a 
kind of baptism, but what was it ? A baptism' of 
the Holy Ghost and of fire, a baptism of the spirit, 
an effasion of spiritual influences, an immersion in 
Light and Love. 

Again, in the interval between the resurrection and 
the ascension of our Lord, he addressed his disciples 
in this wise. Bidding them to wait for the promise 
of the Father, he adds, For John truly baptized 
with water ; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy 
Ghost not many days hence." Here is the same dis- 
tinction pointedly maintained between John's bap- 
tism and this other; between water -baptism and 
spirit-baptism. The occasion was Christ's last inter- 
view with his disciples ; he was soon to leave them 
in this world for ever. He does not say, " Now let 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



5 



me baptize you ; you need to be sprinkled or im- 
mersed; I have never performed this rite on you; 
you are yet unbaptized." No. But he says, John 
indeed baptized with water, but you, my own disci- 
ples, look for a higher baptism ; in a little while that 
higher baptism shall come. " Ye shall be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost not many days hence." Could 
language convey in stronger terms the great idea that 
Christian baptism is with the Holy Ghost and not 
with water ? 

3. Again : I maintain the doctrine of this dis- 
course from the language of St. Peter and the con- 
duct of St. Paul. St. Paul, in his letter to the 
Corinthians, says : " I thank God that I baptized 
none of you but Crispus and Gains, and the house- 
hold of Stephanas ; besides, I know not whether I 
baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to bap- 
tize, but to preach the Gospel." Paul was the first 
teacher of Christianity in Corinth ; he founded a 
church in that city ; he made many believers; yet it 
appears he baptized no more than four or five ; he 
asserts that baptizing was not a part of his commis- 
sion ; he avows not only an indifference to that rite, 
but even congratulates himself before God that he 
had not practised it, declaring that he has higher 
ends in view. Can we do otherwise than conclude, 
from this, that water-baptism was in Paul's mind of 
small account? Of St. Peter, we may say that he 
appears not to have entertained a perfect conception 
of Christ's spiritual baptism till after his remarkable 
vision mentioned in Acts x. In the account which 
Peter gives of this event he says, Moved by the 
1^ 



6 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



heavenly voice, I went to Cesarea, to the house of 
Cornelius the centurion, " and as I began to speak, 
the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the begin- 
ning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, 
how that he said, John indeed baptized with water ; 
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost." It 
seems now for the first time to have dawned upon 
Peter, that the real baptism was of the spirit, a 
baptism of the soul rather than of the flesh. He 
begins to realize the full import of our Saviour's 
words. 

4. In the fourth place, I would refer to a passage 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The writer exhorts 
us to leave certain things and go on unto perfection. 
These certain things are denominated in our version 
" principles of the doctrines of Christ,'* or, literally, 
" the word of the beginning," by which is intended 
the rudiments, the a, &, c of religious attainment. 
Among the things we are to leave is " the doctrine 
of baptisms." Whether this signifies what we now 
understand by sprinkling or immersion, it seems im- 
possible perfectly to ascertain. Yet something of 
this sort I think is hinted at. If this be so, we are 
admonished to leave it (baptism) as an inferior good ; 
to drop the subject, and go on to perfection, to some- 
thing higher and better. 

5. But, however this may be, manifestly the gen- 
eral drift of the Gospel is spiritual, and not mate- 
rial ; it opposes the supremacy of form, and favors 
the inward life. " In Christ Jesus neither circum- 
cision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a 
new creature." This is a cardinal maxim of Chris- 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



7 



tianity, and is as applicable to baptism as to any 
thing else. What circumcision was under the old 
dispensation, baptism was liable to become under 
the new. In fact, it did proceed to occupy the same 
place. As, among the Jews, one could not be saved 
unless he were circumcised, so it came to be a received 
doctrine of the Church that one could not be saved 
unless he were baptized. Water-baptism has been 
counted regenerative, a grace-conferring ordinance, a 
specific antidote to the malady of a corrupt nature 
inherited from Adam. Such is the doctrine of the 
Romish Church, the Church of England, and some 
others. But the spirit of the Gospel is quite opposed 
to all such conclusions. As Paul lightly esteemed 
the rite of circumcision, so he never suffered baptism 
to occupy in his mind an important place as part 
of the Christian economy. " I thank God," he says, 
" I baptized none of you, save " — as many as he 
could count on the fingers of his hand. 

6. I derive support to the doctrine of this dis- 
course from the nature of things. It cannot be, I 
think, that the application of water to the body 
should have a saving efficacy on the soul. If the 
blood of the altar could not cleanse away sin, neither 
can water from the brook. Sin is of too fast a color 
to be washed out by such a process, and holiness is 
of too spiritual a nature to be generated by such ap- 
pliances. 

It is in the light of such considerations as I have 
now enumerated, that I interpret certain expressions 
of our Saviour. I refer to the commission he gave 
to his disciples, " Go, teach all nations, baptizing 



8 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost " ; — and to that other passage 
where he says, He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved." Did our Saviour, by these expres- 
sions, positively instruct his disciples to practise 
water-baptism, and condition salvation thereupon ? 
Why, then, I ask, do we so soon find St. Paul 
thanking God that he had baptized none? But 
more ; is such an idea consistent with other undoubt- 
ed points of character and of conduct in our Saviour ? 
Can it be supposed that he who broke through all 
forms would have made everlasting consequences to 
depend on a momentary and evanescent application 
of water ? If water-baptism were essential, why 
did he never practise it? If he meant that his dis- 
ciples should immerse or sprinkle all nations, why 
did he never immerse or sprinkle any? But what 
does Christ mean when he uses the word " baptism " ? 
In every instance, so far as the present subject is 
concerned, where, from the circumstances of the case, 
his language is determinable, he speaks not of water- 
baptism, but of something very different. " I have 
a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I strait- 
ened till it be accomplished." " With the baptism 
that I am baptized with, ye shall be baptized." " Ye 
shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost." Surely, 
Christ's use of the word Baptism is obvious enough. 
And when he says to his disciples, " Go ye, there- 
fore, and teach all nations, baptizing them (not in 
water, but) in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost"; when he declares, 
" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," — 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



9 



it is spiritual baptism that he means. I delegate 
you to carry this baptism over the world. Immerse 
mankind in the divine flood. Pour on them the 
waters of the heavenly Jordan." 

Thus far we have been considering the meaning 
of Gospel baptism, or the baptism of which Christ 
speaks. We now approach the subject under another 
aspect, and we observe that while, in the great com- 
mission given by Christ to his disciples defining the 
nature of their future labors, the idea of spiritual 
baptism is mainly contemplated, still the Apostles 
and others, after the death of Christ, practised water- 
baptism. Of this there can be no question. While 
we are positively told that Christ did not practise it, 
and Paul but rarely, and while we feel assured that 
the great Gospel baptism is a baptism of the Holy 
Ghost, we have still something to say and somewhat 
to allow concerning water-baptism. Christ did not 
condemn it. He himself, in his own person, received 
it. Some of his immediate disciples resorted to it. 
It was very early adopted as a regulation of the 
Church. True, there is no positive command for 
water-baptism; true, also, that with the rite many 
things have been associated that disgust a liberal, 
and shock a rational mind ; but, nevertheless, I think 
there is a solid and a reasonable basis for it, espe- 
cially as applicable to our children. 

I think I see a reason for the practice in its his- 
tory ; and yet, there are few customs or institutions 
the origin of which is so wrapped in obscurity as 
this. This much, however, appears, — that baptism, 
as a religious rite, has been observed in all times, and 



10 



/ 

CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



among almost all nations. It existed before Christ; 
it was anterior to JNIoses. The ancient Egyptians, 
Greeks, and Romans practised it. and it prevailed 
among the Mexicans and Peruvians. John the Bap- 
tist did not originate it, for it was in extensive use 
among the Jews prior to his day. Baptism, the sa- 
cred use of water, an external application to signify 
an inward purification, would seem to be one of the 
natural instincts of the human mind. It is in allu- 
sion to this universal custom, that John most perti- 
nently says, I indeed baptize you with water," but 
Jesus comes, who will baptize, cleanse, and purify 
your souls: he will scatter amonsr the nations that 
divine truth which, as a flood of baptismal water, 
shall wash their sins avray. It was in accordance 
with this universal custom, that, without any explicit 
declaration on the subject by Christ, it was universally 
introduced into the early Church, and has continued 
as a part of the ecclesiastical ceremonial to this day. 

Baptism, or the ritual use of water, is the sign of 
purification. How then, it may be asked, does it 
apply to children, since it is not pretended among us 
that they are defiled, on the one hand, or cleansed by 
it on the other ? Admittins; its suitableness for one of 
mature years, who has repented of his sins, or who 
seeks by resolution and effort for illumination and 
perfection, still, as children do not fulfil these con- 
ditions, what is its significance when applied to 
them? I answer. Baptism is not, indeed, a sign of 
the purification of children, who have never sinned : 
it is a sign of that purity into ichich it is hoped chil- 
dren may grow. It is a sign of that perpetual purity 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



11 



\Yhich ought to reign over the heart and the conduct 
of childhood. We have a remote antiquity in favor 
of infant baptism, as well as its authority for much 
superstitious practice. As I have akeady said, 
water-baptism has been counted regenerative, — 
held to be a grace-conferring ordinance. Water ap- 
plied in baptism was thought to purge the stains of 
the Fall' and to insure salvation. In Scotland, a 
few years since, unbaptized children were supposed 
to wander in woods and solitudes, lamenting their 
hard fate, like the souls of unburied Greeks on the 
banks of the Styx. In the North of England it 
was deemed unlucky to go over the graves of the 
unbaptized. But all these things we wholly discard. 
It is as an act wherein parents consecrate their chil- 
dren to God and the Church, as a pledge wherein 
they resolve to train them up in the way of Christian 
obedience, as an earnest and foreshadowing of that 
ultimate and greater baptism with the Holy Ghost 
and with fire, that infant baptism has its chief in- 
terest for us. Here, as I conceive, are the vital bear- 
ings of the subject. It is an ordinance whereby the 
important relations and duties of the Church are 
signified and recognized. It is the seal of the cove- 
nant ichich the Church makes luith its children. It 
expresses the interest w^hich the Church has for the 
little ones, and foretokens the protection it would ex- 
tend over them, and the blessings it would bestow 
upon them. 

The question is not, then, what good a sprinkling 
of water will do the children, or what harm will 
ensue if th^y be not baptized ; it is rather the greater, 



12 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



the more momentous question, What will the Church 
do in behalf of these new heirs of immortality, these 
raw empirics in human experience? It matters not 
how young a child may be, or how imbecile, or how 
unconscious ; we take it, helpless, idealess, sleeping 
it may be in its mother's arms, and baptize it into 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost. Such, I say, is what the Church pro- 
poses to do. Such, at least, is my idea of what the 
Church ought to do ; such is the standard of obliga- 
tion it should erect for itself. It, thus, would enter 
into covenant with the children ; it would cast its 
wise restraints about them; it would shield them 
with its most maternal love ; it would guide them 
to their eternal rest. The Church has many things 
to deal with, many concerns to look after, but the 
gravest of its cares is the welfare of its children. 

It is quite as well, nay, it is far better, that one 
should be young when he is baptized. Very young 
children do not understand the Sabbath, its nature 
or its uses, and yet we rejoice to have them feel its 
sanctity, and be subdued by its repose. So in re- 
spect of many things we do for them, or by which 
we would affect them, they are unconscious of the 
significance or the motive of our conduct. What- 
ever is done systematically and permanently for chil- 
dren usually takes its start below their consciousness, 
and gradually rises to it. As I would have a person 
young when he begins to acquire knowledge, or 
when he commences a course of virtue, so I would 
have him young when he is baptized ; that is, I 
would not have a child continue in ignorance, nor 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



13 



addict himself to vice, before in these respects coun- 
teracting influences should be gathered aboat him ; 
nor would I have him live in sin, no, not for an hour, 
before he should be surrounded by the salutary- 
forces of religion and brought within the jurisdiction 
1 and wardenship of the Church. 

! What in this matter have we cause to deplore ? 
I This : that the mind and heart and strength of the 
Church have been engrossed with an outward, mate- 
rial ceremony, whereon Scripture delivers itself some- 
what ambiguously ; while there has been a sad for- 
getting and neglect of the inv/ard, spiritual ceremony, 
whereon the letter of Scripture is so precise and 
authoritative, " I indeed baptize you with water," - — 
we read so far and stop. We crowd about John, as 
if he had uttered words on which hung the doom of 
the universe; we ask who, what, where, when, how? 
" Shall little children be baptized ? " " No," cries one 
party, " it is lud icrous, it is absurd." " At what age, 
then ?" " With how much water ? " " By dripping 
or by dipping? " The whole Christian world is con- 
vulsed. But what says John ? I baptize with 
w^ater, indeed ; let it pass for what it is worth ; but 
he, my superior, he into whose shadow I so soon 
shall fall, he, your Saviour and Redeemer, shall bap- 
tize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. But in 
spite of this, we follow the waning disc of the de- 
creasing John, hunting for the pools of Enon, pry- 
ing along the reedy banks of Jordan, anxious, prayer- 
ful, seeking for depth of water wherein to lay our 
bodies. Christ, the increasing, the dilating one, who 
mounts upward, beckoning us on, who would bap- 

2 



14 



CHRISTIAN BAPTISM. 



tize US in the sun, who would pour on us floods 
of empyrean light, him we forsake and despise I 

But there is a spiritual baptism, to which we ought 
to aspire. " Baptized inio Christ." " Baptized vAth 
the Holy Ghost." This is peculiar language. The 
formula, baptized in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," means not merely 
christening or taking upon one's self the Christian 
name ; it signifies this higher baptism. We are bap- 
tized into God, as we are into Christ. Not merely is 
the name of God a portion of the formula, the Spirit 
of God is the transfusing element. In true baptism, 
the font is not hewn out of marble or fabricated of 
silver. Our baptistery is the universe ; the baptismal 
flood is God, and Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We 
are plunged in the mighty influences of truth. It 
is a fiery baptism, — one that melts and refines us; 
one that sheds warmth and vivacity through our souls ; 
one that disperses the darkness of the mind, and 
gives rest and peace to our natures. In that gor- 
geous lustre and radiance which burns on cloud- 
tops, and streams along the sky at sunset, I baptize 
my soul. In that diviner light, in the beams of the 
Sun of Righteousness, in the very brightness of the 
Father's glory, I baptize my soul. Daily as the sun 
baptizes the earth with light, yearly as it baptizes 
it with verdure, so ought we to be baptized with the 
beauty of the Son of God. Wliatever we may 
think about water-baptism, let us not forget the bap- 
tism with the Holy Ghost and fire. Let us con- 
tinually strive for the baptism of Christ, even as 
Paul did for his resurrection. 



SEEMON II. 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 

CAST TE UP, CAST TE TP, PEEPARE THE WAY, TAKE UP THE 
STUMBLING-BLOCK OUT OF THE WAT OE MY PEOPLE. — Isaiah 
Ivii. 14. 

There are many stumbling-blocks in the way of 
duty. As the true idea of the soul, of Christianity 
and the Church, begins to unfold, these stumbling- 
blocks are developed more and more. One hin- 
derance to doing what we ought to do for the sacred 
interests to which we all are nominally committed, 
lies in that frequent phrase, " I am not a professor." 
There is still another, which lurks in the feeling or 
notion that one has not been converted. There are 
multitudes who will not do any thing for God or 
the Church, on the ground that they have not been 
•converted. Let us examine what this ground is, 
how good it is, how substantial. 

Those who occupy it are not bad men, vile, cor- 
rupt, impious. I take it, all who plead this excuse 
would repel such an imputation. The simple idea 
at the bottom is, " I have not been converted." 
What is this being converted ? What is the force 



16 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



of this idea ? How far does not being converted, in 
the sense attached to that word, furnish a reasonable 
disqualification for duties that lie before us? Is not 
the logic of the phrase chargeable with incoherency ? 
If a man who has neglected duty hitherto, now per- 
forms it, is he not a converted man ? Is there any 
sense in saying you will do your duty after you are 
converted? Are you not converted in the very act 
of undertaking to do your duty, or in passing from 
a state of indifference to one of interest ? 

What is the meaning of the word " conversion " ? 
It is turning, or turning round. It is the Latin form 
of the Saxon expression to turn. It signifies to 
turn from one state or condition or mode to another. 
The corresponding Greek word means this, and no 
more. The original word in the New Testament is 
translated, indiscriminately, to turn, and to be con- 
verted. In the expression, " the dog is turned to 
his vomit again," precisely the same Vv'-ord is used 
(eTTtarpecj^co^ aTpe(f)co^ as where it is said, " When thou 
art converted, strengthen thy brethren," or " Let your 
laughter be turned (be converted) to mourning." 
In this passage, " Jesus turned him about in the press, 
and said. Who touched my clothes ? " the same word 
is used as where we read, " He vv hich converteth the 
sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
death." Our Lord turned, was converted, and looked 
upon Peter. Throughout them all, the word is the 
same. Paul asks, " How turn ye again to the weak 
and beggarly elements ? " how are ye converted ? 
And from this it appears we may, in Bible language, 
be converted or turned from good to evil, as well as 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



17 



from evil to good. Not only is the whole man spoken 
of, in the New Testament, as tm-ning, or being con- 
verted, but parts of a man are thus spoken of. Paul 
speaks of some who turn away, convert, their ears 
from the truth. Some in their hearts turned back 
again, were converted, unto Egypt. Again, we read 
that Mary turned herself back and saw Jesus, convert- 
ed herself. Jesus turned himself about, was convert- 
ed. If the house be worthy, let your peace come 
upon it. If it be not worthy, let it return to you 
again." Here we get a very precise idea of the word. 
So the unclean spirit is represented as saying, " I 
will return into my house whence I came out." 
" Neither let him which is in the field return back to 
take his clothes." And the shepherds returned^ 
glorifying God." Ye were as sheep going astray, 
but are now returned [converted] unto the Shepherd 
and Bishop of your souls." 

Again, this verb is almost always active in the 
original, where it is passive in the translation. This 
people have closed their eyes, " lest at any time they 
should see with their eyes, and should be converted" 
(^eiTLaTpe^(jo(TLy literally, should turn, or return, " and 
I should heal them." " If thy brother trespass against 
thee seven times a day, and seven times a day turn 
again to thee [be converted to thee], thou shalt forgive 
him." " Repent ye, therefore, and be converted,'^ 
return, turn, or convert yourselves. Indeed, I do 
not recall an instance where the verb in the original 
has the passive form. But the translation sometimes 
gives the word in the active sense of the original. 
Thus : " Many of the children of Israel shall he 



18 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



[John] turn [convert] to the Lord their God, and he 
shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias 
to turn [convert] the hearts of the fathers to the 
children," &c. " And all that dwelt in Lydda saw 
Eneas, whom Peter had healed, and turned unto the 
Lord." " And a great number believed, and turned 
unto the Lord." Paul says : " We are men of 
like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye 
should turn [be converted] from these vanities unto 
the living God.-' It is possible, according to the 
word of God, for one man to convert another. The 
commission to Paul was in these words: "I send 
thee to open the eyes of the people, and to turn 
[convert] them from darkness to light." " Brethren," 
says St. James, "if any of you do err from the truth, 
and one convert him, let him know that he which 
converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall 
save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude 
of sins." 

This is the way the matter stands in the Bible. And 
now, in the light of divine truth, I ask again. What 
is the meaning of the pretence that a man cannot do 
his duty to God, to his own soul, and the Church, 
until he is converted? Men are sometimes likened 
to sheep going astray. What language shall we use 
to them ? What shall they reply to us ? Suppose 
we say, " You ought to be in the fold, you ought to 
go back to your Shepherd," shall they reply, " We 
know it, but we cannot do so until we are convert- 
ed " ? What is going back but conversion ? Sup- 
pose w^e say, " Instead of continuing to go on in this 
way, you ought to turn back and go home." If they, 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



19 



owing to some deep, inveterate prejudice, fail to per- 
ceive the equivoque in the words, " We cannot turn 
back until we are converted," we should have to ex- 
plain to them that these two ideas are identical. As 
the Apostle says, " Ye were as sheep going astray, 
but are now returned [converted] unto the Shepherd 
and Bishop of your souls." 

The allusion, the import, and application of the 
language in the Bible are exceedingly simple. You 
are turned from an object, you turn towards it and 
are converted ; as Christ turned (literally, converted 
himself), and looked towards Peter. You are going 
a wrong way, you turn and go a right way ; you are 
converted ; as the sinner is converted who is turned 
from the error of his way. You have neglected 
your affairs, you now attend to them ; you are con- 
verted. You have been indifferent to truth, you be- 
come interested in it ; you are converted. 

Summarily, conversion, according to Bible lan- 
guage, is doing the very thing which you say you 
must be converted before you can do. Conversion 
does not lie anyv/here betVv^een a man and his duty. 
Whoever faithfully fulfils his duty, having once neg- 
lected it, is a converted man. " Conversion " does 
not express what a man is, or what happens to him, 
but what he does. Invariably, I believe, it is re- 
ferred to by the sacred writers in an active sense. 

Suppose now, to begin at the very quick of relig- 
ion, you do not love God, your heart is estranged, 
you are carnally-minded, you are the servant of sin ; 
how does the Bible and common sense address you 
in such a case ? It urges you to love God ; it ad- 



20 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



monishes you of your serious duty. Do you say, 
you would love God, and be a disciple of Christ, if 
you were only converted ? The very act of loving 
God, the very first recognition of Jesus as your Lord 
and Master, is conversion ; it is the essence and ful- 
fihricnt of that very thing. If you do not love God, 
and presently begin to love him, that is conversion, 
it is turning your heart to him ; it is obedience to 
the exhortation, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye 
die ?" If you have been sceptical, faithless, heartless, 
cold, in regard to Christ and the Church, and hence- 
forth become a believer, a lover, and a doer in these 
regards, that again is conversion, you become a con- 
vert. Multitudes think or feel that they cannot pray, 
or it is no duty of theirs to pray, or it is not expected 
of them to pray, till they have been converted. The 
fact is, if you have hitherto neglected prayer, turned 
your back upon it, and now turn round, if you now 
begin to pray, you thereby become converted. 

There is no mystery in conversion, so far as the 
Gospel is concerned. It is a matter of common 
sense, of every-day life, of familiar experience. Christ 
and the Apostles employ the word in all manner of 
connections, and for all sorts of purposes, and with 
the utmost freedom. It is, as you see, a common 
word in the Bible, just as much so as turning, or 
going, or looking, or moving. There is no theo- 
logical, occult, polemic word Conversion in the 
Bible. It is used indiscriminately of one who 
turns from duty, and of one who turns to it. It has 
just as many uses as the word turn has, physical, 
moral, secular, religious. There is just this differ- 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



21 



ence; the verb "to turn" is active-transitive and 
active-intransitive, as when we say, " a man turns to 
go home," or " a man turns a wheel"; whereas the 
verb "convert" is used only in an active-transitive 
sense, as thus : " a man converts ice into water." We 
do not say, a drunkard converts to temperance, but 
are obliged to employ the passive form of the verb, 
and say, a drunkard is converted to temperance. But 
the Greek verb, iTrtcrrpecj^co, is employed, just like our 
verb to turn, in an active-transitive and in an ac- 
tive-intransitive sense. Yet in rendering this word 
"convert" instead of "turn," the translators resorted 
to a less flexible word, and one that without an ob- 
ject must always be used in the passive voice. So 
they represent Peter as saying, " Repent and be con- 
verted," and Christ as saying, " Except ye be con- 
verted," while in reality the former says, " Repent and 
return," and Christ says, " Except ye return." 

Out of this grammatical peculiarity has the mis- 
take, in part, arisen, under which the subject labors ; 
and this contributes likewise to uphold the dogmatic 
error that man is passive in conversion. It is 
preached everywhere, in elaborate churches, in ves- 
try-rooms, in school-houses, in camp-meetings, that 
men must be converted. I affirm that that is not 
what the Bible teaches. The language and doctrine 
of the Bible are, that man must return, or turn about. 
On this difference of phraseology depend most sin- 
gular results. The two words have very different 
meanings, and theologically speaking this difference 
is of a rather formidable nature. What is sin ? 
What is man ? What is religion ? What is to be 



22 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



looked for in the matter of salvation? These and 
similar questions are involved in this discussion of 
a word. Is sin, as the English Church maintains, 
the corruption of our nature, naturally engendered 
from Adam ? Or is it, as the Bible says, a trans- 
gression of the Divine law ? If the former, then con- 
version is a passive state, a supernatural effect ; a 
man is converted, he does not return. If the latter, 
then conversion consists in obedience to the law, it 
is ceasing to do evil and learning to do well. Is sin 
an act, or is it a mode of our natures ? Is it volun- 
tary or involuntary ? Is man as a sinner responsible 
or irresponsible ? Does a man sin in Adam, or in 
himself? We do not hesitate on these questions, we 
have no doubts whatever on the subject. God has 
revealed the truth to his own Church. Most strik- 
ingly, most wonderfully, most providentially I might 
say, does the examination of Scripture serve to con- 
firm all the fundamental views of the Church. The 
deeper we pursue the inquiry, the more light from 
the great central luminary is derived to our foregone 
conclusions. The moment we leave the pathway 
of creeds and formulas of human device, and come 
where God himself speaks to the children of men, 
then do we discover what the essential truth is. 

No ; conversion is a returning, mark the word, a 
returning, a going back to something we have left, a 
recovery of an old position, a resumption of what we 
have neglected. Jesus says, Except ye be convert- 
ed," — that is, except ye return, turn about, go back, 
— " and become as little children, ye cannot see the 
kingdom of God." The child's nature is not corrupt, 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



23 



it is not a vicious condition of being engendered of 
Adam; it is pure; it is free, I mean, from the stain 
of sin; and we must return to that simplicity and 
innocence, that our souls may be saved. This is 
what Christ teaches. This is what we believe. 
This is the doctrine of the Church. 

Conversion, then, in its highest sense, is the return- 
ing of the soul to its God, of the child to its Father 
in heaven, of the wanderer to his homie. Repent 
and be converted ; repent and return. By repent- 
ance and humiliation, every sinner can and must re- 
turn to his God. 

All this, you say, is obvious and satisfactory. 
What is the difficulty? This is it; that, as regards 
many of us, the effect of our early education cleaves 
to us, the errors with which the very atm^osphere 
round about is saturated influence us, the popular 
prejudices on the subject are imbibed by us, and 
when a man is spoken to about his duty to God, his 
own soul, and the Church, instantly a feeling arises 
which says, "Why, I have never been converted I " 
or, " If I had been converted, you might expect such 
and such things of me.'' The effect is like poison 
taken into the system, and a long time will be neces- 
sary to purge it away. This prejudice, or sentiment, 
whatever it be called, is sometimes hallowed by the 
memory of parents who believed very differently from 
what we can believe ; it is associated, perhaps, v/ith 
some of the tenderest and most solemn recollections 
of our life. Sometimes, when it has been hammered 
into us by some powerful sermon we may have 
heard, it has become like a goad fastened by the 



24 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



master of assemblies. Our nerves, or our strength, 
are not sufficient to rise to the simple Gospel point 
of elevation, where we can see that conversion is 
doins: the will of God. 

There is another matter in this connection which 
occasions difficulty, — a dread of what the world will 
say. If one of you should undertake a Teligious duty, 
the question Vv'ould be asked, When was he con- 
verted?*' Or perhaps the vrhisper would go round, 
I never heard he had met with a change I Or, 
Do they allow unconverted people to engage in 
religious duties?'' The fear of man bringeth a 
snare, and the dread which I speak of fetters many 
a foot, and smothers many an utterance. 

Again, there are those who contrive to comfort 
themselves with the idea, that, as they never have 
been converted, nothing is expected of them, and 
who hope to live along without reproach from others 
or remorse in their own souls. "While you really be- 
lieve one thing, you practise another. Your rational, 
sober belief is, that conversion is doing your duty ; 
your practice proceeds on the principle, that you can- 
not do your duty until you are converted. This idea 
of conversion that is so prevalent, that is even lodged 
in your own feelings, is not a Gospel idea, but a 
Calvinistic figment. And let me say, you never can 
be Calvinistically converted, for the reason that you 
do not believe in Calvinism. You practise Calvin- 
ism every day ; I mean, you proceed on the idea 
that nothing in a religious way is to be expected of 
you until you have been converted. But that sort 
of conversion the men and women here to-day will 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 25 

never reach, go where you will, and hear whatever 
preaching you may, for the reason that in your own 
minds you do not, and never can be made to accept 
the dogma on which it rests. No, you will go on 
just as you are now going, through life, from this to 
your dying day, with the light of evangelical truth 
shining full upon you, but with your feet at the 
same time cumbered with the miry clay of error and 
prejudice, unless by some immediate, vigorous, and 
as it were, revolutionary decision, you break the spell 
that binds you. 

I remark, as regards multitudes of young men and 
women, and older men and women, in the sects about 
us, and all over the State, that they are waiting for 
this supernatural conversion ; they are waiting for it, 
they are doing nothing themselves, they have no en- 
joyment of God, they have no assurance of hope, 
they enter upon no religious duties, they accept no 
responsibilities as imm.ortal beings. Religiously 
speaking, they are wasting, dissipating, losing the 
best portion of their lives, and all because the time 
of their fancied conversion has not yet arrived. 
Some of them live in sin, commit all sorts of vice, 
under the vain notion that this something called 
conversion, in a revival or at some other juncture, 
will supervene, and then they will not want to sin, 
then they will come into the Church, leave off bad 
habits, and enjoy a pure life. 

Such a conversion as they dream of may possibly 
happen to them ; but, as I have had occasion to re- 
mark, the instances are becoming fewer and fewer all 
through the country. And what, erelong, must the 



26 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



issue be ? That there will be no religion at all ? 
Assuredly Calvinism is losing its force upon the 
public mind ; certainly Calvinistic conversions are 
diminishing. When there shall be no such conver- 
sions, what then? What, I ask, will become of our 
young men and w^omen, and our older men and 
women ? 

My reply is, that the platform of the simple Gos- 
pel is broad enough to receive them all, and strong 
enough to hold them all. They will yet find, as I 
hope and pray, that being converted, in the Gospel 
sense, is radically and simply a turning unto God, 
The Church, the true Church, the Church that has 
the seven golden candlesticks blazing v/ith light, 
must develop itself, extend itself, lengthen its cords, 
and strengthen its stakes, that it may receive into its 
bosom and enfold the multitudes of the bewrayed, 
the estray, the forlorn and lost, who may flee from 
error, cant, and formality, and desire a shelter. 

The two notions of the innate corruption of hu- 
man nature and of miraculous conversion are actu- 
ally consuming the religion of New England ; I 
mean, they are filling our cities and towns, our 
churches and families, with those who believe they 
have nothing to do with religion or the Church except 
in that mysterious contingency to which I have ad- 
verted. God gives it to us, my friends, ■ — reverently 
and without presumption, yet positively, I say it, — 
God gives it to us to rescue and preserve the religion 
of our country. The Church, God's own Church, 
that which is the pillar and stay of the truth, that 
which invokes reason and common sense, (without 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



27 



which religion cannot stand up long anywhere.) 
which allies itself to humanity and cleaves to the 
simple word of God, — in a word, the true Churchj 
is our refuge and our hope. 

My friends, let us listen to the message God ad- 
dresses to us. " Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the 
way, take up the stumblhig-block out of the way of 
my people." The stumbling-blocks in the way of 
truth are obviously such as error puts there ; the 
stumbling-blocks in the way of our individual prog- 
ress in truth are such as a false education has placed 
in our way. One of these obstacles is that which I 
have now commented upon, that one cannot do his 
duty until he is converted. Let us, my friends, re- 
move it out of the way. " Not being converted " 
really exempts you from no duty, discharges you 
from no obligation, gives you quittance from no com- 
mandment ; no, not for an hour. If you are a sinner 
before God, your duty is to leave off your sins and 
turn to or be converted unto God. If you do not 
pray, your duty is to pray. No plea of non-conver- 
sion can excuse you for an instant. If your child 
runs into the street, and you send for him to come 
back, does it content you that he replies, " When I 
am converted, I will go back " ? You send him to 
school, and he plays truant, and wanders down to 
the river. When one speaks to him, and urges him 
to return to school, shall he take refuge in the same 
preposterous reply ? And yet that reply is no whit 
less absurd in respect of religious duties than it is in 
the cases just supposed. 

Nor do we misconceive conversion, we understand 



28 



GOSPEL CONVERSION. 



it ; nor do we pervert its meaning, we elucidate it ; 
or rather, by applying ourselves to the simple word 
of God, we discover and learn what it is. This ex- 
plains what I have elsewhere said about Unitarian- 
ism being the true interpreter of the Bible. It gets 
just as near to the mind of Christ as it is possible to 
do. It goes to the original media of expression ; it 
compares passage with passage ; it follows a given 
word from book to book. Having heard Christ use 
a phrase once, it stays near him and waits until he 
uses it again, and then it betakes itself to Paul, to be 
sure of the sense ; and thus, simply, humbly loving 
the truth, it is impossible that it should not know the 
truth. 

My friends, to use no harsher epithet, it is a shame 
that rational, immortal beings, men and women with 
religious natures, a religious sense, religious needs, 
should be embarrassed in the discharge of their du- 
ties, hindered from the accomplishment of their des- 
tiny, spoiled of their highest happiness, by these 
pitiful pretexts. Let us feel, let each man, woman, 
and child feel, that we have something to do for God, 
our own souls, and the Church. Let us be ready to 
do that something to-day, or any day, as opportunity 
offers, or call upon us shall be made. Let us remem- 
ber that conversion consists in doing our duty ; that 
we are being converted just as far and as fast as we 
do our duty; that there is no conversion, and never 
can be a genuine conversion, while a man neglects 
to do his duty. 



SERMON III. 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 

FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS AS A MAN TRAVELLING INTO A 
FAR COUNTRY, WHO CALLED HIS OWN SERVANTS, AND DELIV- 
ERED UNTO THEM HIS GOODS. AND UNTO ONE HE GAVE FIVE 
TALENTS, TO ANOTHER TWO, AND TO ANOTHER ONE ; TO EVERY 
MAN ACCORDING TO HIS SEVERAL ABILITY ) AND STRAIGHT- 
WAY TOOK HIS JOURNEY. — Matt. XXV. 14, 15. 

I MIGHT refer for my text to the entire passage 
which I read to you this morning. In it are con- 
tained the thoughts on which I propose to dwell, 
and the doctrine I would inculcate. 

In the parable it is stated that the servants were 
held responsible, each according to his ability. The 
word " talent," which in the original means a sum of 
money, may be considered, in its spiritual applica- 
tion, to denote in general terms our duties ; and it is 
a principle at once of Christ and of common sense, 
that duty devolves to every man according to his 
ability. It is sometimes common to regard talents 
in the light of powers, gifts, endowments ; that is, 
means of performing our duty. But this seems to 
confound them a little with the ability or capacity 
according to which they are distributed. Perhaps 
both ideas are to some extent involved ; and the 

3^ 



30 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



term may stand for faculties to be improved, as well 
as duties to be fulfilled. The language of the text 
isj " The Lord called his own servants, and delivered 
unto them his goods ; and he gave to every man ac- 
cording to his several ability." The ability was the 
basis, the measure of the trust. The abihty in each 
case determined the ratio of his bounty ; the bounty 
was not arbitrarily bestowed, and then regarded as a 
criterion of ability. No man is accountable for what 
he cannot do. No man is accountable beyond the 
strict limit of his ability. The doctrine of the pas- 
sage is, to be a little more specific, that every man is 
responsible to God and to his own soul; that relig- 
ious, moral, and other duties devolve to every man, 
according to his several ability. 

The passage reads, " The kingdom of heaven is as 
a man," &c. These words in italics are not in the 
original, but are supplied. Better, perhaps, say. The 
Son of Man is as a man travelling into a far coun- 
try, &c. This would be more appropriate, I think. 
Christ, so to say, has g'one on a journey. He leaves 
his goods, his effects, his interests, his schemes and 
purposes, in the hands of his servants. He delivers 
to us duties, work, commands, according to our sev- 
eral ability ; to one ten talents, to another five, to 
another one ; to all, something. If we are right in 
supposing that the parable refers to men generally, 
our statement broadens into this, that Christian du- 
ties devolve to every man, according to his ability. 
Let us look at this determining test, the hinge on 
which our duty is made to turn, this ability. 

Ability may be considered as made up of three 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



31 



parts, or resolvable into three elements, intelligence, 
capacity, and opportunity. Perhaps more things 
may enter into its composition, but these three are 
certain and enough. There must be intelligence, or 
the knowledge of what duty is; capacity, or the 
power of performing it ; and opportunity, or the oc- 
casion and call for it. If one have these three in 
combination, he would seem to be sufficiently fur- 
nished unto all good works, unto all that God or 
man can demand of him*- Our formula, then, may 
be thus expressed : man is responsible according to 
his intelligence, capacity, and opportunity. Consid- 
ered as moral and religious beings, our moral and 
religious duties are as our intelligence, capacity, and 
opportunity ; as under the Christian dispensation, 
our Christian obligations are in the same ratio. 

Reflect on w^hat is here involved. Our responsi- 
bility and duties before God are not proportioned 
according to any arbitrary judgment of our fellow- 
men, or any conventional standards of society. They 
do not devolve to wealth alone ; the poor man has 
high obligations as w^ell as the rich. They are not 
laid upon mental force alone ; the man of mediocre 
mind is equally accountable with the man of gigantic 
intellect. Only some have ten talents to deal with, 
and others but one. Again, our duties are not deter- 
mined merely by the intelligence w^e possess, but also 
by our capacity. Nor are these alone to be consid- 
ered; thereto must be added opportunity. A man 
may clearly see that certain things ought to be done, 
and yet have no power to do them. Or, the under- 
standing and the power may entirely fail of results, 
by reason of a want of occasion or call. 



32 CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



Especially I would observe, that our moral and 
religious accountableness is not graduated by pro- 
fession. The Lord, in the parable, divided what 
may be called his capital among his servants, not ac- 
cording to the professions any of them made, but 
unto every man according to his several ability. So 
are we all accountable before God. So are moral 
and religious duties, so are Christian obligations 
apportioned amongst us, to every man, woman, and 
child, according to our several ability. Such I un- 
derstand to be, such I insist is, the rule of Christian- 
ity and of common sense. Let us apply it, — apply 
it to ourselves and to the community about us. 

A difficulty appears at once. The general senti- 
ment and practice have transferred and confined the 
obligation of religious duties to a limited portion 
of the population. Li other words, the world about 
us is divided into two classes, one of which assumes, 
while the other deems itself exempt from, the high- 
est duties of human existence. The former is a 
small company, the latter comprises the great body 
of our citizens. Herein is a singular condition of 
things. Let us examine it for a moment. That 
which characterizes these two classes is, for the most 
part, what is popularly known as profession of re- 
ligion and non-profession. Or, the first are techni- 
cally church-members, and the last are non-church- 
members. The sentiment or notion to which I refer 
is, that the highest human obligations before God, 
religious duties. Christian accountability, devolve 
solely to the comparatively small fraction of the 
community called professors of religion. I observe, 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



33 



moreover, that this is an ecclesiastical novelty, a 
notion somewhat peculiar to New England. The 
origin of it is to be found in the dogma that all men, 
by nature, are totally depraved, but that in a few 
men this depravity is in some supernatural way 
cured. Hence the people of any given locality be- 
come separated into two classes, the naturally irre- 
ligious and the supernaturally regenerate. Those 
whose innate depravity has been cured make a pro- 
fession of the fact, or of their hope of the fact; 
thence the distinction of professors and non-profes- 
sors. Thus sprung up this sweeping characteriza- 
tion of the human race. In its peculiar features, and 
such as we ourselves have been familiar with, the 
system is about a century old. It is sometimes said 
to be of no consequence what a man's speculative 
notions are. But this purely metaphysical abstrac- 
tion of total depravity lies at the very bottom of the 
sentiment and usage to which I have adverted. 

You all know how the case stands. Go back in 
memory to the village where you were brought up. 
There were the professors and the non-professors ; 
in other words, the Church,'' so called, and the 
world. The professors were supposed to be in the 
sight of God the good people, and the others the 
bad. The professors had hopes, the others had none. 
Call to mind the universal, deep-seated, positive 
popular expectation and feeling that these profes- 
sors alone should partake of the Lord's Supper, that 
they alone should have their children baptized, that 
they only should pray in their families and in private, 
that they should attend and generally speak and pray 



34 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



in religious meetings, that if any one would study for 
the ministry, or go forth as a missionary, or become 
a deacon, or undertake any religious office, he must 
be a professor ; and, negatively, that these men must 
not use profane language or dance. Nay. more- 
Was it not in your younger days, is it not now 
everywhere hereabout, the expectation, feeling, senti- 
ment, deep and irresistible, that those others, the 
non-professors, would not partake of the Sacrament, 
or have their children baptized, or pray in their 
families or in an evening meeting ; that no one of 
them would for a moment think of filling the office 
of a deacon, or of studying for the ministry, or of 
embarking on missionary labors? I do not mean 
that a non-professor was positively enjoined not to 
pray, but would it not have been thought passing 
strange if the mass of the people, the non-professors 
in your native town, had adopted regular habits of 
family prayer? But as for certain kinds of recrea- 
tion, you know these were, for the most part, abso- 
lutely interdicted to professors, or at least were re- 
garded as matters of reproach and discipline when 
indulged in by professors, while for a non-professor 
to practise them was thought nothing of. 

Will it be said that this distinction of professor 
and non-professor implied a real difference in char- 
acter, in heart and life ; that the first was truly a 
saint and the last a notable sinner, the first really a 
good man and the last really a bad man? Is that 
the fact? Are New England professors of religion 
the really good men of New England, and are non- 
professors the really bad men ? I am aware that 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



35 



here I come close upon a disputed dogmatical ques- 
tion, and I grant that a fancied real distinction has 
something to do with this outward nominal distinc- 
tion. But go into any community where this eccle- 
siastical classification prevails, and will you hear any 

one saying, " Why ! Mr. is a good man^ and 

therefore I Vv^onder he does not attend the prayer- 
meeting ! Is not the wonder and the reproach more 
often this, — He is a professor^ and therefore he 
ought to attend the prayer-meeting" ? This distinc- 
tion, the basis of this expectancy, is not that some 
men are really good, and therefore should do thus 
and so, and the rest are really bad, and therefore it i.^ 
of no consequence what they do; it is simply pro- 
fession and non-profession. The mere fact that a 
man is a professor, not that he is really a good man, 
determines at once the popular expectation in regard 
to him. So, I say, speculative theology, here in New 
England and elsewhere, divides the human race. 

Consider now the operation of such a division on 
the exterior and interior religion of New England. 
These professors, or converted men, as they were 
reputed to be, were supposed to have joys and 
hopes that others had not. They were addressed 
from the pulpit differently from others. They were 
deemed to be God's elect, and called God's people. 
When they died, it was presumed they went to 
heaven. All outward religious duties and privileges 
devolved to them, such as prayer, communion, bap- 
tism, &c. They constituted the Church. Presently 
they began to assert some special rights. They 
claimed the exclusive right to choose and settle the 



36 CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



minister. But the others, the non-professors, had to 
help pay the minister's salary. Hence a dispute arose 
between them. The professors, commonly called 
the Church, yielded so far as to say, " We will nomi- 
nate the minister, and you may have a voice in his 
election." In the case of Brattle Street Church, 
Boston, now Unitarian, the non-professors went to 
the point of insisting that, as they ,were equally in- 
terested in the minister with the rest, they would not 
only vote in his election, but they would have an 
equal voice also in his nomination. And it has 
since come to pass in all the Liberal churches of 
New England, that professors and non-professors 
unite in the choice and settlement, as well as the 
maintenance, of the minister. This ecclesiastical 
distinction was one of the causes of the rise and 
development of denominational Liberal churches 
in New England. 

After Whitefield's time, professors began to tighten 
the reins, and to insist more strenuously than ever on 
their prerogatives. It was asked by them, — and 
on the common Calvinistic ground there was much 
pertinence in the question, — Why should sinners, 
unconverted, depraved, and vicious men, be allowed 
to choose a minister? How could they undertake 
to determine who should dispense God's message? 
And gradually the non-professors began more and 
more to be excluded from all voice and influence in 
church affairs. In some instances in Massachusetts, 
as members of the parish they actually outvoted 
the professors and bore them down ; but in other 
cases the professors got the upperhand and drove 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



37 



off the non-professors. The upshot of the matter 
was the fixed establishment of distinctively Liberal 
churches. Several of the older Massachusetts Uni- 
tarian churches sprung directly out of this oppug- 
nance between professors and non-professors. In 
some cases the non-professors withdrew and formed 
congregations, settled pastors, and sustained Chris- 
tian ordinances of their own. I am aware that what 
is called the ecclesiastical history of New England 
does not state the case just as I have stated it, but 
such, nevertheless, is the actual truth. 

I pass to the more impressive fact already inti- 
rnated, that the entire catalogue of vital and practi- 
cal religious duties was lifted wholly from one class, 
and left resting wholly upon the other; the thing 
was as palpably, as clearly done, as if I were to 
take this Bible from one side of the desk, and lay 
it over on the other. Nobody was expected to pray, 
to be in the habit of prayer, except professors, or the 
so-called Church. I do not say that all others were 
forbidden to pray, but nobody else was expected to 
pray. I am certain of this, that not only was no 
one expected, but no one was allowed, to partake 
of the communion, except professors. It was so in 
respect to manifold other duties. The great majority 
of people virtually relapsed from all sense of their 
Christian and religious obligations. 

Now, what is presented in all this but a direct 
impugnment, rejection, and overthrow of that cardi- 
nal principle of Christ, and of common sense, that 
Christian and religious duties are imposed and rest 
upon all men, according to their several ability ? I 

4 



38 CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



know of nothing in any country or age, under any 
form of religion, Heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, 
or Christian, like this, which, in its most striking de- 
velopment, we behold round about us, — that the per- 
sonal, private, peculiar obligations of religion are 
thought to pertain to only an insignificant fraction 
of a given community. The public ministrations 
of religion, possibly, may be in some cases more 
select, and ecclesiastical functions more sparingly 
bestowed, but not the personal and familiar duties 
of religion. 

According to this order of things we have all been 
educated ; in it we have received our nurture and ad- 
monition ; it is a part of our personal history ; it is 
cradled among our instincts and sentiments; the 
great majority of even this congregation are at this 
moment under the almost despotic control of this 
marvellous hallucination. Yet nature struggles 
against it, — our riper reason is against it, — • all laws 
of human association and the general law of human 
happiness are against this anomalous, monstrous di- 
vorce between professors and non-professors. Un- 
derstand me, my friends ; I say nothing against the 
propriety or advantages, or even duty, of making a 
formal avowal of religious faith. That may be 
well. I am only undertaking now to exhibit the 
lamentable fact, that, while all the highest obliga- 
tions before God, all religious and Christian duties, 
devolve to every man, professor or non-professor, 
according to his ability, yet here in this community 
all such duties are distributed according to pro- 
fession. It may be one of our duties to make such 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



39 



a profession, but even that duty is to be discharged 
according to every man's ability. It was not enough 
that mankind^ had been voted depraved and natu- 
rally averse from religion, but the clergy, the divines, 
the learned theologians, have deliberately taken from 
them a sense of the obligations of a religious life. 

But many things, I say, are against this divorce, 
and tend to promote a reunion. A hundred years 
ago, professors tried to keep aloof from non-profes- 
sors in the matter of choosing their ministers ; but in 
many churches they came together, and I believe 
there is not now a church in this State that would 
venture upon calling or settling a minister without 
free and full consultation with what it pleases to call 
the world. So in forming a parish, erecting a meet- 
ing-house, providing for support of ministers, there 
is at this day no recognized distinction between the 
two classes. Converted and unconverted men are 
seen wending their way to the house of God in com- 
pany. When it is desirable to sell pews, I l3elieve 
the money of an impenitent sinner is as readily ac- 
cepted, if not as highly esteemed, as that of a regen- 
erate man. In the matter of Sunday schools, al- 
though it is generally desirable, yet it is not always 
the case, that the Superintendent is a professor. In 
respect to the teachers, I believe they will be usually 
found to consist of both classes, and as for the schol- 
ars there are rarely any professors among them. In 
missionary movements, so far as its pecuniary basis 
and general home management are concerned, no 
discrimination is made. Non-professors attend the 
monthly concerts of prayer, the names of non-profes- 



40 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



sors may be found in the lists of members and sub- 
scribers. In rural gatherings, Sunday-school celebra- 
tions, parish meetings, the Church and the world meet 
on equal footing. It is no uncommon event for a 
professor to marry one who is not, and clergymen 
are nothing loth to sanction this vital, indissoluble 
compact between parties, one of whom they, theoret- 
ically, believe to be w^holly corrupt, a child of the 
Devil, and the other they presume to have met with 
a change, and to be a child of God. I may observe 
that the family to a very considerable extent serves 
to confound and annihilate this ecclesiastical dis- 
tinction, inasmuch as under the same roof, around 
the same table, and in all that belongs to home, and 
its sacredness, depth, and beauty, professors and non- 
professors are everywhere mingled in together. In 
raising funds for the endowment of theological 
schools, no such distinction is kept up. In all that 
pertains to the personal comfort or necessities of the 
minister and his household, men of both classes pro- 
miscuously are seen to engage. 

"What I have mentioned are some of the religious 
relations in w^iich the Church and the world of any 
given parish are found to unite. I need not say how 
in benevolent and philanthropic enterprises they are 
mutual helpers and (30-w^orkers ; in efforts for reliev- 
ing the poor, in the temperance reform, in behalf of 
peace and universal emancipation, they all move 
together. But it is of what belongs peculiarly to 
religion that I would chiefly speak. And I observe 
there is an increasing tendency to a reunion between 
professors and non-professors. Is there any harm in 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



41 



this? Does the Church lose any thing thereby? Is 
souncj piety endangered ? Is the Church coming 
down to the world, or the world rising up to the 
Church ? 

rn the opening of this discourse I stated what 
Christ had laid down for us, as the great law of hu- 
man obligation, in respect of what is highest and 
holiest; that in every man duty is proportioned to 
ability. I have taken an historical review of a portion 
of Christendom, and shown how this law has been 
set at naught, and how it has been attempted to 
segregate a class of men on whom peculiarly and 
solely these obligations should rest. I have said 
how, in process of time and in the providence of 
God, even these inveterate distinctions begin to give 
way, and that all classes are found coalescing more 
and more in certain religious relations. I am now 
prepared to make a seasonable, and I trust an ef- 
fective, application of the doctrine of the text. 

I see, my friends, how you are situated. I know 
how most of you have been educated. I can allow 
for all the subtle influences that are biasing at once 
your nature and your reason. I have spoken of cer- 
tain things, perhaps some will deem them among the 
lesser and unessential things, in which the world actu- 
ally does unite with the Church. Shall we stop there ? 
Shall we carry the healing process no further ? It 
may be God will carry it further in spite of us. A 
few years since, when professors, as I have said, 
would not permit non-professors to have a voice in 
the choice of a minister, those very non-professors 
drew off and built a meeting-house and settled a 

4* 



42 



CHRISTIAN 



OBLIGATIONS 



UNIVERSAL. 



minister for themselves. It may yet happen that 
no]i-professors will withdraw and set up a commun- 
ion-table likewise. But that is not exactly the 
point I am concerned about, as I fear it is a result 
of which there is little hope. The danger is rather 
in an opposite direction. While indeed many things 
indicate that non-professors are awakening to some 
sense of their duty and privileges, I fear they will 
stop far short of their whole duty. 

But oua"ht there not to be distinction between 
professors and those who are not, between church- 
members, so called, and the world, so called ? I am 
not now discussing that question, nor am I obliged 
to notice it, except to observe that this is not a happy 
way of propounding the true question. Our modern 
notions of the Church and church-membership are 
wholly foreign to the New Testament. But as to 
the practical effect of the distinction, it vras vrell 
tested some years ago in the matter of settling min- 
isters ; let those renew the experiment who will 
Refuse to give a man a voice in the choice of his 
pastor, and then go to him with the subscription- 
paper. Nay, to be consistent, having refused his 
vote, refuse also his subscription, and finish up, con- 
summate the desired distinction, by shutting him out 
of the meetinsf-house altogether. Let not the un- 
converted appear in the assembly at all 1 Thus the 
separation of the Church and the world would be 
complete; then it would be seen at a glance, who 
were Christians and v>^ho were not. But see how 
this distinction has actually disappeared in the Sun- 
day school. There you will find unconverted per- 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



43 



sons, non-professors, the world, teaching the Bible 
to the children, some of whom, it may be, are them- 
selves church -members. 

There is the duty of prayer. Respecting this there 
may be a diversity of gifts. All persons cannot lead 
in miscellaneous social devotion. In this, as in many 
other cases, some have ten talents, some five, others 
only one ; but to each man is the talent or duty al- 
lotted, according to his ability. Take, now, a case like 
this. A non-professor gives money to the mission- 
ary cause; at the monthly concert, prayer is put up 
in its behalf ; it is customary to pray for success to 
the end and for a blessing on the means. Now is it 
not absurd to imagine that a man may give money 
for a religious object, and yet have no power to pray 
for a blessing on what he does ; absurd to suppose 
that God will accept a man's pecuniary offering and 
not his prayers ? I lay it down as a rule, which I 
think no reasonable man will wish, and no bigot dare, 
to dispute, that whenever and for whatsoever a non- 
professor, a technically unconverted man, may bestow 
pecuniary aid, then, and for just that, he not only may 
pray, but he is bound to pray. And as to speaking 
in social religious meetings, the samxC law applies. 
It is not the ])eculiar duty of professors of religion to 
do this ; it is every man's duty, in proportion to his 
intelligence, capacity, and opportunity. 

Then as to miscellaneous Christian duties : to let 
our light shine, to overcom.e evil with good, to love 
God and our neighbor, to be renewed in the spirit of 
our mind, to put away lying, to be humble and sub- 
missive, to edify one another, to repent of sin, — 



44 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



these, and more that I might name, all belong to 
every man of us, according to om' ability. They 
belong to no set of men, but are equally imperative 
on every man in Christendom, who has intelligence, 
capacity, and opportunity therefor. The text, to 
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 
ordinarily preached to professors, is as applicable 
to one man in a Christian land as to another. We 
are all called of God and to God. We are called to 
virtue, to holiness, to Christ ; and we are every one 
of us bound to honor our vocation according to our 
several ability. 

There is the duty of the baptism of children ; 
where in the Bible is it said the children of profes- 
sors shall be baptized? If it is one parent's duty to 
have his children baptized, it is the duty of every 
other. It is the duty of every man according to his 
ability. If you can understand this rite, if you be- 
lieve in it, if you have a proper sense of it, you cer- 
tainly have the capacity and the opportunity, and 
it becomes your duty, to conform to it. 

There is the sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; we 
know about this ; we know how it is viewed ; but 
can you show me the least warrant for the prevailing 
scruples? can you show me one line of Scripture 
that limits this ordinance to a scant and select por- 
tion of a Christian community ? Christ says. Do 
this in remembrance of me. Can you tell me why it 
is my duty to thus remember him, and not yours ? 

O, but you are a professor ! " It is not one whit 
more my duty than yours. Have you intelligence, 
capacity, and opportunity therefor? Answer me 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 45 

that. Therein is contained the key to your duty in 
this matter. 

You see, my friends, where the application of this 
subject brings us. I have no design in what I say 
to inveigh against any body or any thing ; my sin- 
gle aim is to rectify the conditions of religious ob- 
ligation. I wish to snatch a burden that has been 
unnaturally and unwarrantably laid upon a few, and 
distribute it amongst all. Granting that certain 
people have taken upon themselves these duties, they 
have no right to any exclusive distinction thereby. 
The mass of our people, like serfs in despotic coun- 
tries, like slaves in our own, under the present sys- 
tem have grown supine, dull, indifferent to their 
duties, privileges, and obligations. I would arouse 
them to a sense of what they are losing. I would 
kindle them, so to say, to some purposes of rebellion 
against this usurpation. I would incite them to the 
resumption of their God-given prerogatives. A pro- 
fessor of religion has no more right, and is under no 
more obligation, to pray, to have family prayer, or 
make public prayer, than you. Each one of you has 
the same right, and is under the same obligation, to 
do so. I care not what the clergy may say, — I care 
not what the popular sentiment has sanctioned, — I 
care not what the prevailing custom is; it is all 
wrong, — wrong before God, wrong in the light of 
the Bible, a wrong to our deepest convictions. 

In the eleven years that I have been pastor of this 
church, I have never yet preached a discourse solely 
and pointedly to technical professors, as such ; and 
for the reason, that every obligation that rests upon 



46 CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIOx\S UNIVERSAL. 

them, rests with due weight upon every man in the 
parish according to his ability. Every man of us is 
bound to live well, not according to his profession, 
but according to his intelligence, capacity, and op- 
portunity. Here is a poor person to be relieved, a 
sick man to be prayed with and comforted, a vicious 
man to be reformed ; it is not the professor's duty 
to do it solely and exclusively, it is every man's 
duty according to his ability. The great mass feel 
that they have nothing to do but sin ; they are not 
expected to pray, they may not commune, they may 
not participate in the public exercises of religion, and 
so they are left to abide in their sins. Yet out of 
the goodness of their hearts they come with their 
money, and ask to be permitted to pay a little to- 
wards the church expenses and the church needs, and 
their money is always well received. Bad, most 
bad, most unchristian state of things!. Let us do 
what we can to change it. 

Will you, each one of you, my hearers, ponder upon 
the great truth of this discourse, the weightier truth of 
Jesus? Need I say, that nature does not discrimi- 
nate among us, whether we are professors or not ; the 
season smiles, and the harvest ripens for us all alike. 
Neither does the discipline of life discriminate ; — 
temptation, sadness, and woe overtake us all. Neither 
does sickness discriminate, nor the grave. Neither 
will the Judgment discriminate. The simple question 
of that day will be. Have we the talents committed to 
us, ten, five, one ; and have we been good and faithful 
servants over them ? God is going to reap among 
these non-professors, just as surely as he will among 



CHRISTIAN OBLIGATIONS UNIVERSAL. 



47 



the professors. And he has sown here, too ; for eleven 
years at least, may I not say, his truth has been sown 
in all your hearts. God is going to gather among 
these non-professors, just as much as among the pro- 
fessors ; and he is not a hard man, reaping where 
he has not sown, and gathering where he has not 
strewed. He has been sowing and strewing here 
now these many years. O, will any one of us be 
the wicked and slothful servant ? Will we imitate 
his conduct and invite his doom ? 



SEEMOX IV. 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH? 

THAT THOU MATEST KNOW HOW THOU OUGHTEST TO BEHAVE 
THYSELF IX THE HOUSE OF GOD, WHICH IS THE CHUECH OF 
THE LIVING GOD, THE PILLAR AND GROUND OF THE TRUTH.— 

1 Tim. iii. 15. 

The Church, the Church of God, the Evangelical 
Church, the Holy and Apostolic Church, what is 
it ? where is it ? who is it ? 

There is the Greek Church, prevalent in Greece, 
Turkey, Russia, numbering seventy million souls ; 
is that the Church? There is the Roman Church 
with one hundred and twenty million adherents, 
the English Church and its branch in this country, 
the Church of Scotland, the Nestorian Church, the 
Lutheran Church, the Abyssinian Church; are any 
of these, or all of them, the Church ? The Church 
is the pillar and ground of the truth. Are these 
the pillar and ground of the truth ? The Church is 
that by which the manifold wisdom of God is made 
known, according to the eternal purpose which he 
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord. In this sense, 
are these the Church ? Are they the body of Christ, 
or that of which Christ is the head, which is the 
Church? 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH ! 



49 



For the sake of conveniencej and according to the 
natural laws of language, we apply the term church 
to a variety of things, as to a building, to a sect 
organically considered, to a body of professors. But 
the New Testament does not state the thing in this 
way. According to that, the Church is a body, com- 
prising men, women, and children, of which Christ 
is the head. " Christ is the head of the body, the 
Church.'' The husband is the head of the wife, 
even as Christ is the head of the Church ; and he is 
the saviour of the body. 

There is no such language in the Bible as memi- 
ber of a church. According to the evangelical idea, 
we are members of Christ. " Ye are the body of 
Christ, and members in particular."^ " For no man 
ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and 
cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church : for we 
are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his 
bones." " Know ye that your bodies are members 
of Christ?" Again, we are members, not of a 
church, but of one another. The allusion in the 
Bible is not to a body politic, or to a body corporate, 
but to the body vital. The reference is strictly an 
anatomical one. Here is a structure, an animal 
organization, like to our own bodies, of which Christ 
is supposed to be the head, the brain, the heart; and 
we are members, as hands, feet. This is the Gospel 
idea of the Church. 

Let us suppose a living organism to pervade crea- 
tion, so far as intelligent beings are concerned ; 
veins and arteries of spiritual life flow back and 
forth through the whole ; as respects man and the 

5 



50 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH ? 



earth, Christ is the head of that body, and we are 
members, and God is the head of Christ; he is head 
over all, he is the immense, universal life. We in 
this become members of Christ's body; yea, even of 
his bones and of his flesh. 

This vital, living allusion is also preserved in that 
other language, I am the vine, ye are the branches, 
and my Father is the husbandman. The heart of 
God, so to say, pulsating through the universe, beats 
in Jesus Christ and in all his followers. There is 
not only one body, but one faith, one baptism. The 
connecting element, the arterial tide, is the Holy 
Spirit, which runs like blood through all pure souls, 
or blows like the wind across the continent of rational 
being. Most intimate and very strong phraseology 
is kept up on this subject all through the New Tes- 
tament. He that dwells in love dwells in God, and 
God in him. Christ desires that his people may be 
one in him and God, even as he is one with God. 
This unfolds the radical and primary Gospel idea of 
the Church. 

Again, there is a secondary idea, that of a num- 
ber of men in a given place, who are members of 
Christ and of one another; arterially, vitally, joined 
to Christ and God, by the Holy Spirit. Thus we 
read of the Church in Nymphas's house, the Church 
at Antioch ; that is, a number of people who in those 
places were members of Christ, a part of the Divine 
organization in the universe. We read of persons 
being added to the Church ; being added to the num- 
ber of such members, or added to that Divine organ- 
ization in the universe, which consists of God, Christ, 
and man united by the Holy Spirit. 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH I 



51 



Wherever, in any part of the world, appeared peo- 
ple breaking away from Paganism, or Judaism, and 
accepting the truth as it is in Jesus, they were 
called the Church. As this number increased, they 
chose elders, presbyters, bishops (overseers), pastors, 
ministers to be over them. 

There is no such thing in the New Testament as 
what w^e call joining the Church ; that is, outwardly 
joining a company or society ; as we say, joining the 
Odd Fellows. The moment a man truly accepted 
Christ, he w^as a member of the Church ; that is, he 
was a member of Christ, a member of the Divine 
organization, a partaker of the New Covenant. 

Will you observe this language ? " The Lord daily 
added to the Church of such as should be saved." 
Daily. People were not " converted," and then kept 
waiting two or three months before they could join 
the Church. The moment the Jewish eunuch be- 
lieved that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the 
moment the heathen jailer believed, he was a mem- 
ber of the Church. 

The primary meaning of the word church is as- 
sembly, congregation, any collection of people. Its 
particular meaning is an assembly or congregation of 
people united to Christ. It is par excellence the as- 
sembly, the congregation, as the Bible is The Book. 
Churches are assemblies or congregations, or num- 
bers of Christian people. This institution called the 
Church is of great account in the Bible. Christ loved 
the Church, and gave himself for it ; he cherisheth and 
nourisheth it ; he designed it for a glorious Church. 

But there is something extant in our day, calling 
itself the Church, — as the Greek, or Latin, or Eng- 



52 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH f 



lish, or Baptist, or Methodist Church, — about which 
even good men are suspicious. We find some most 
excellent men outside of it. They leave the Church, 
they disown it, they will have nothing to do with it. 
We find other excellent people whom you could no 
more persuade to join the Church, than Daniel could 
have been induced to join in the worship of Nebu- 
chadnezzar. Is this what Christ and the Bible mean 
by the Church ? 

In the text, Timothy, who had just entered the 
pastoral office, is directed how to behave or conduct 
himself in the house of God, — not meeting-house, 
but household, family, or assembly of God, — which 
is the Church of the living God, the pillar and 
ground (the stay) of the truth. The first idea, then, 
of the Church, considered in respect of its action 
and duty, is, that it is the pillar and ground or stay 
of the truth. Of course, it follows that that which 
is the pillar and stay of error is not the Church of 
God. This is a plain test. The doctrine that Christ 
is very and eternal God, of one substance with the 
Father, is an error, a gi'ave error, one of the most 
salient and pernicious heresies ever promulgated. 
Whatever is the pillar and stay of such an error is 
not the Church. It may be a church, it may have 
something in common with the true Church, but 
it is not the Church. 

The doctrine of the Trinity destroys the whole 
idea of the Church, as it is set forth in the Bible, 
which is, that believers are members of Christ, even 
of his flesh and of his bones. If Christ be God, 
they cannot be members of him, except through Pan- 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH ? 



53 



theism. A part of the doctrine of the Church is 
that God is over all, — that Christ, man, all things, 
are inferior to God. The notion that Christ is very 
and eternal God, of one substance Vv'ith the Father, 
overthrows the Divine organization, and confounds 
the economy of God in respect of the Church. 
It follows that the Greek, Roman, and English 
Churches are not the Church, for they all teach and 
hold uppermost in their teachings that Christ is very 
and eternal God. They may be a church ; their in- 
dividual votaries may belong to the true Church ; 
but, considered as a whole, considered as a body, 
they are not the Church. Xo man who joins them 
joins the Church, for they are not the Church. 

Another test is this, that Christ, under God, is 
the head of the Church. That which owns any 
other head than Christ is not the Church. The 
Pope is accounted the head of the Roman Church. 
At least, we know that every man, holding any sort 
of post in that Church, is obliged, on penalty of ex- 
communication, to profess and swear obedience to the 
Roman Pontiff. The king of England, by the fun- 
damental law of the realm, is supreme head of the 
Church. I am aware these things are explained as 
not meaning much ; but when every man in the 
Romish Church, who holds office in that Church, is 
obliged to take oath to obey, not Jesus Christ, but 
the Roman Pontiff; when every man who holds 
office in England is bound to acknowledge, under 
oath, that the king or queen is supreme head of the 
Church, it shows hovv^ wide is the departure from the 
evangelical idea of the Church. • 



64 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH? 



A third test of the Church is, that it is that by which 
the manifold wisdom of God in Jesus Christ might 
be made known. In the third chapter of Ephesians 
Paul is speaking of the unsearchable riches of Christ, 
of God's promise in Christ, of the mystery that had 
been hidden in God from the beginning of the world, 
and how he had been appointed to preach thereof, to 
the intent that unto the principalities and powers in 
heavenly places might be known by the Church the 
manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal 
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus. Imme- 
diate reference is here had to the fact that the Gen- 
tiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, 
and partakers of the promise of God by Jesus Christ. 
The general reference, however, is to what he else- 
where styles the great mystery of the Gospel, — 
Christ in us the hope of glory. Here he speaks par- 
ticularly of an object he has in view, that Christ may 
dwell in his readers' hearts ; that, being rooted and 
grounded in love, they may know the love of 
Christ, and be filled with all the fulness of God. 
In a word, the wisdom of God purposed of oi^ in 
Jesus Christ, here referred to, is what we now-a- 
days call the scheme of redemption. By the Church, 
then, the true scheme of redemption is made known. 
There have been many schemes of redemption. 
Some churches say we must accept Christ as an 
atoning sacrifice in order to be saved. Some teach 
that water-baptism is regenerative. The Roman 
Church says a man is damned who rejects the de- 
crees of the Council of Trent. The English Church 
says a man is damned who rejects the Trinity fabri- 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH? 



55 



cated at Nice. But that only is the Church, which 
teaches the scheme of redemption, or mystery of 
God in Christ, as laid down in the Gospel. 

Here, then, are three very plain and simple tests 
of the Chm'ch. First, that it is the pillar and stay 
of the truth; second, that Christ is its head; and 
third, that it teaches the purpose of salvation by 
Christ. 

These three things are found in this Church. First, 
it is the pillar and stay of the truth. The truth in 
regard to God and man, revelation and nature, 
humanity, duty, life, death, and eternity, is here en- 
forced and maintained. The aim of Unitarianism 
has ever been the simple truth of Scripture. I need 
not refer to the writings of Locke, Lardner, Norton, 
Channing, Dewey. The truths of Unitarianisin, I 
mean the truths which God in his providence out of 
the Bible, in conjunction with human reason, has 
revealed to the Unitarian mind, are at this moment 
affecting, modifying, agitating, reforming, the whole 
system of theology. There is hardly an intelligent 
mind in the land, of whatever persuasion, but finds 
his views influenced by these Unitarian truths. The 
dogmas of the Trinity, Total Depravity, Vicarious 
Atonement, Baptismal Regeneration, everywhere are 
giving way, either in substance or form, to the light 
thus manifested. This Church, then, is the pillar 
and ground or stay of the truth. 

Secondly, it acknowledges Christ as its head, and 
rejects all other heads. Creeds do not bind it. 
Councils are not its authority, it has no king or 
pope to whom it owes allegiance. It has no arti- 



56 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH ? 



cles, aside from the Gospel, to be subscribed as a 
condition of fellowship. You acquire admission 
to it, not by the way of its clergy, but by way of 
Christ. Its criteria of heresy are reason and revela- 
tion. Unitarian churches, each and all, profess 
Christ to be their head. I know no exception to 
this. I do not know a single church amongst us 
that puts any thing but the Gospel between a man 
and his duty. I do not know of a single church 
amongst us that requires of its ministers, its dea- 
cons, or any of its officers or agents, any thing more 
than a belief that Jesus is the Son of God, or a be- 
lief in the words and teachings of Jesus and the 
Apostles. By this test, then, this is the Church, that 
body of which Christ is the head. 

A third test of the Church is, that it teaches the 
method of salvation, originating in the wisdom of 
God and developed through Jesus of Nazareth. 
This indeed may be variously stated. Christ in 
you the hope of glory," is the summary language of 
St. Paul. It is making Christ our Way and Truth 
and Life ; it is possessing the spirit of Christ ; it is 
bearing the fruit of the spirit ; it is receiving the 
life of God into the soul through Christ ; it is having 
Christ manifested in our mortal bodies; it is dwell- 
ing in love; this is the wisdom of God according 
to the purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus 
our Lord. And this we hold and teach. By this 
test too we are the Church. 

There is a definition of the Church in these 
w^ords : ''The visible Church of Christ is a congre- 
gation of faithful men, in which the pure word of 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH ? 



57 



God is preached and the sacraments duly adminis- 
tered according to Christ's ordinances, in all those 
things that of necessity are requisite to the same." 
And by this te t the Unitarian body are the Church. 

Heresy^ in a generic view of the term, is a de- 
parture from the word of God. The doctrines that 
Christ is very and eternal God, that the Holy Spirit 
is the third person in the Godhead, that human 
nature deserves God's wrath, that man can will or 
do no good thing, that relics are to be worshipped, 
of the resurrection of the body, of water-regenera- 
tion, &c., are all heresies, all departures from the 
word of God ; and most of the so-called churches 
are, herein, heretical. This Church rejects these 
things because they are departures from the word of 
God. This Church is not heretical. 

Orthodoxy means sound doctrine. That is sound 
doctrine which is according to reason and Scrip- 
ture ; or which is according to the word of God. 
The Unitaria Church is the orthodox Church. 

CaLholic means general, universal. That is the 
Catholic Church which sees all men one in Christ, 
which expands its sympathies wide as humanity, 
which recognizes the universal brotherhood of the 
race. The Unitarian Church is in the best sense the 
Catholic Church. 

The Apostolic Church is that which has the same 
foundation as the Apostles ; that is, Christ. This is 
the Apostolic Church. 

Evangelical is simply Greek for Gospel^ which is 
Saxon for good neivs. The message of the angels 
was good news, glad tidings, or Gospel ; the whole 



58 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH f 



scope and spirit of Christianity is good news, glad 
tidings. Gospel, Evangelical. We adhere to the 
whole scope and spirit of Christianity ; hence are 
we the Evangelical Church. 

This, my friends, is Unitarianism. Some iiave 
been suspicious of it because they did not know 
what it would lead to. It seemed to be a departure 
from the old standard, and where it might end was 
not known. This is what it leads to, the recovery 
of the Church. It departs from dogmas that it may 
find the truth as it is in Jesus. It abjures Roman- 
ism, Anglicanism, Calvinism, that it may give its 
allegiance to the Gospel. As the Israelites left 
Egypt, and slavery, and onions, and garlic, and went 
on till they found the promised land, so have we 
left the churches of prelates and dogmas, of slavery, 
and of plenty to eat, that we might find the true 
Church. Our fathers left the despotism of the Old 
"World to build up a glorious commonwealth in the 
New. So Unitarianism, if it has seemed to wander 
many months, like the Mayflower, on an unknown 
and tempestuous sea, is freighted with earnest, truth- 
loving, and God-fearing souls, and it makes land 
at last on the new continent of thought where it 
may build up a glorious church. 

There are in this matter of the Church what may 
be denominated things indifferent. An instance is 
the erection of places of worship, meeting-houses, 
or, as they are wont to be called, churches. There 
is nothing in Scripture commanding or forbidding 
these. It is a matter which Christ left to the good 
sense and discretion of his followers. 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH 



59 



There are questions of names for particular 
churches. The name of this is Christ Church, a 
name deliberately adopted by the congregation wor- 
shipping here. By this name it is known in law. 
By this it is distinguished from other churches in 
town ; as the Nazarene church, St. iNIark's church. 

There is the use of language. "We speak of 
church order, church music, church organ, church 
architecture, church bells, church going; we speak 
too of Church and State, we have histories of the 
Church. All this, I suppose, is a proper use of lan- 
guage. We frequently speak of going to meeting, of 
attending meeting. You go to the church ; your 
place of worship is Christ Church, or simply the 
Church. Some people say they attend the Unita- 
rian meeting; rather they attend Christ Church, or 
the Church. 

In England people are divided into what are called 
Churchmen and Dissenters ; members of the Estab- 
lished Church being Churchmen, and all others Dis- 
senters. I am no Dissenter, and I repudiate the name. 
I never did use it, and never will, to describe myself 
or my brethren. I, we, all of us, are Churchmen, 
and for the simple fact that we adhere to, and have 
never left, the house of God, which is the Church 
of the living God, the pillar and stay of the truth. 
The real dissenters in the world are those who have 
departed from the simplicity of the Gospel of 
Christ. 

There is a question of the baptism of children. 
It is not specifically answered in Scripture. Christ 
and his Apostles dealt chiefly with Pagans and 



60 



WHAT IS THE CHURCH f 



Jews. The question for us is, When Christianity 
becomes the religion of a country, and children are 
born to Christian parents, how ought the Church to 
regard them ? It ought to baptize them and cherish 
them in its bosom and nurture. 

Who are members of the Church ? All who are 
members of that body of which Christ under God 
is the head, are per se members of the Church. All 
who accept Christ as the Son of God, all believers 
in Christ, are members of the Church. We are all 
members of the Church just so far as we love God 
and goodness. All who do justice, love mercy, and 
walk humbly before their God, are members. The 
peacemakers, the poor in spirit, are members. When 
the wicked man turneth from the wickedness he hath 
committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, 
he becomes a member. All of us, my friends, just 
so far as we have an interest in Christ, and are de- 
sirous to know his truth, to do his will, to be pos- 
sessed of his spirit, to imitate his example, are so 
far forth members of his body, and are his Church. 
Just so far as we seek to build upon the foundation 
of the Prophets and Apostles, Jesus Christ himself 
being the chief corner-stone, as individuals or a 
community, we are his Church. 

You see, my friends, what, as part of the Unita- 
rian and Liberal body, our position is, and what 
God is calling us to, and how we are bound to vin- 
dicate and maintain the dispensation committed 
unto us. 



SEEMON V. 

t 



BIETH-EELATION TO THE CHEECH. 

FOE AS WE HATE MAXT 3IEMBERS IX OXE BODY, AND ALL ZME21- 
BERS HATE NOT THE SAME OFFICE ; SO TTE, BEIXG 3IAXT, ARE 
ONE BODY IX CHRIST. AND EVERY OXE MEMBERS OXE OF 

AXOTHER. — Eomans xii. 4, 5. 

I HAVE shown that we are The Church; also, that 
all religious and Christian obligations devolve to 
every man according to his several ability. 

I purpose now to inquire into the obligation which 
every man sustains to the Church. I have already, 
under the general argument, intimated that every 
man owes obligation to prayer, to the communion, 
and other pious offices, according to his intelligence, 
capacity, and opportunity, in respect of such things. 
I purpose at the present time to consider the Church 
by itself, as one of the radical forms of human soci- 
ety, and including all these duties under the sum- 
mary head of duties which the Church represents, or 
which are its peculiar care. I purpose, I say, to in- 
quire into the ground of this universal obligation to 
the Church, and to examine more particularly the na- 
ture of our relation to it. 

Why does every man of us owe obligation to the 

6 



62 BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 

Church of Christ, or that which the Church repre- 
sents, or which it prescribes ? How is it that I, as 
minister of the Church, can urge you, all of you, 
without discrimination, to the performance of these 
duties ? There must be involved here some simple 
principle of reason and nature. Can we discover it? 
Why does a man owe obligation to other things, in 
respect of which such obligation is supposed to ac- 
crue ? Why do we all owe obligation to the state, 
to the government of this empire ? Why to the 
family, why to the city, why to society in general ? 
Is it because the state, the family, society in gen- 
eral, protects us and does us good ? For the same 
reason do you all owe obligation to the Church, inas- 
much as it protects and blesses you all. It invites 
you all within its walls, it pours its light over you all, 
it visits you all in sickness, it brings your children, 
without distinction, into its Sunday schools, and is 
ever ready to shield your virtues, further your happi- 
ness, and crown you with immortal life. For this 
cause, then, if there were no other, you are all obli- 
gated to the Church, each one according to his sev- 
eral ability. 

But this is not all ; there is something deeper than 
this, something underlying these reasons. I observe 
that, as regards a great variety of human relations, 
birth is the primary ground of obligation. As to most 
of what may be called the great natural relations of 
man, this is the primary ground of obligation. Why 
does a man owe obligations to, or how can he claim 
protection from, these United States? Fundamen- 
tally, from the fact that he is born here. Why is an 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



63 



Englishman similarly situated in respect of England, 
or a Chinese in respect of China ? Mainly from the 
same fact, that he is born there. Or if it is because 
we are citizens of this republic, how came we to be 
citizens ? As regards the great mass of us, because 
we were born here. Birth makes every man a citi- 
zen of the state, and he is to be so considered, until, 
by some overt act, he forfeits the rights of citizen- 
ship. On the other hand, why do these United 
States owe protection to us ? Fundamentally for 
the reason I have stated, that we are born here ; or 
if because we are citizens, still we are citizens be- 
cause we are born here. 

This protection is owed indiscriminately to man, 
woman, and child. It would not seem to be earned ; 
it would not seem to be in recompense of good deeds 
on our part. This government owes protection to 
the infant of a day, as well as to the greatest man in 
the land, and for the reason that it is born here. So 
the family owes support to its members, fundamen- 
tally from this accident of birth. So, in general, 
society owes something to all that are born into it. 
So, reciprocally, all persons owe something to so- 
ciety into which they are born. 

Let me illustrate the point. Let me take a case 
so far removed from common life as to be free of the 
objections which, from a thousand causes, in treat- 
ing subjects of this kind, are wont to embarrass our 
view. I will imagine a case like this ; that a num- 
ber of unenlightened and heathen people are thrown 
upon an uninhabited island, which they make their 
permanent abode. In a few years, as we may sup- 



64 



BIRTH-RELATIOX TO THE CHURCH. 



pose, they become in a measure educated. They 
wish to form a government, and found a nation. 
By some wonder, they discover a political constitu- 
tion like that of one of our States. They adopt it. 
In all solemnity and with much parade it is pro- 
claimed the fundamental law of the land. By and 
by another generation springs up ; children are born to 
these first settlers. Have they any thing to do with 
this constitution, or it with them ? Have they any 
right to it ? Ai'e they in the state, or out of it ? 
Do they belong to it, or are they in a condition of 
outlawry ? They are part of the state, you say. 
Bat for what reason? This, simply and circularly, 
-that they are children of their fathers. In other 
words, birth is the foundation of this political rela- 
tion. The children are born into the republic. If 
you please, it is the right of nature, it is a God-given 
right, it is an inalienable right ; yet, the literal, prime 
foundation of the right is birth. 

So much in regard of the State, or politics. Let 
us now turn to the matter of the Church, or religion. 
We will suppose this people in some way to find a 
Bible, and to become believers in Christ, and to ac- 
cept the Gospel as their rule of faith and guide of 
life. With all solemnity and prayer in the great 
congregation they do this. In other words, they 
form a church. They choose a pastor, they meet on 
the Sabbath, they have the sacraments. They be- 
come a church, a body Christian. All things go on 
well. By and by a new generation springs up. 
Where, as respects the church, do these belong ? 
Are they in it, or out of it ? Do they owe it any 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



65 



thing, or it them ? Are they parts of it, or in a con- 
dition of outlawry, disfranchisenient, excommunica- 
tion ? Is not the church over and around these 
children, as much as the state? Is not that pastor 
pastor of all the people, as much as that governor 
is governor of all the people ? Need I make formal 
answer to these questions ? This new generation 
has relations to the church in virtue of birth. These 
children are children of the state in virtue of being 
children of their parents, and for the same reason 
are they children of the church. 

I can perceive no flaw in this course of argument. 
I know of no possible escape from these conclusions. 
That church is as much beholden to the children of 
those parents as that state is ; it is as much bound 
to look after them, to provide for their weal in 
spiritual things, as the state is in temporal things. 
The church is as much an entity as the state is. 
It is as much a permanent interest, as much a fun- 
damental organism, as the state is. It is as miuch 
needed as the state. A good religion is as proper 
to man as a good government. 

And what connects the successive generations 
with the institutions of the past is, primarily, birth. 
Let us suppose this were not the case. Let us 
suppose the children of the country to which I have 
referred, — or rather, to bring the matter nearer home, 
let us suppose the children of those who adopted the 
Constitution of this country in 1784, — that these 
children, I say, in virtue of birth, as being children, 
held no sort of relation of duty, service, or interest, to 
that Constitution. Why, that Constitution and the 

6* 



66 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



union of these States would end, would be annihi- 
lated, with the death of those who first adopted it, 
and the next generation would be left all afloat, with- 
out a government, without laws, without a country, 
\yithout unity. If the rule of descent does not hold, 
the link is broken that connects one age with another, 
and the institutions of the past with the future. The 
extant generation of the people of this country 
must either live without a government, or go on to 
form a new one, or split into a thousand govern- 
ments, each of which shall last during the lifetime 
of its founders only, unless this hereditary principle 
be a good one. 

But to turn back to that imaginary land. The 
fathers die, the state does not die ; it is perpetuated 
in their children. Neither does the church die ; 
that, likewise, is perpetuated in the children. The 
children are bound to take up the church when their 
fathers leave it, just as much as they are to maintain 
the state, and carry it on. 

This is clear, my friends, is it not? All the peo- 
ple ovv^e obligation to that state, do they not? And 
do not all the people owe obligation to that church ? 
And does not this obligation both to church and 
state continue through all generations, that is, so 
long as the state and the church continue ? 

Have I not, my friends, pointed out the fundamen- 
tal ground of obligation to the church ? Have I not 
elicited the correct principle of the thing ? Is there 
one in this assembly who thinks I have not stated it 
right ? Is there one who sees any considerable 
weakness in the case I have undertaken to make 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



67 



out ? Of course, I speak in an abstract and general 
manner, and without reference to local or temporary- 
exceptions. 

As regards that country, you may say persons 
coming to reside in it from abroad, from other na- 
tions, are not admitted to the state, or to the privi- 
lege of citizenship, without probation. True ; but 
the probation ends with them. The children of these 
naturalized parents fall into the general flow of 
things, and become, like all the rest, members by 
birth. Thus, in these United States, an Englishman 
must wait five years, I think, before he can become 
to all intents an American, or a citizen of the repub- 
lic. But the Church, the true Church, is more uni- 
versal than any existing state is. There is no re- 
public of nations, there is no community of repub- 
lics. If there were, this law of naturalization w^ould 
be greatly m.odified. As it is, England being a mon- 
archy, there w^ould seem to be a propriety in allowing 
its people who come here time to become republi- 
cans. But the true Church is one in all parts of the 
world. Of course, the Church of England, the vari- 
ous Trinitarian churches in this country, however 
much truth they may embody, are not to us the true 
Church. But taking the Unitarian Church to be the 
true Church, I say it is one in all parts of the world. 

Let me ask a moment's attention to this word 
naturalization. It is a singular w^ord, perhaps a 
strong word, a term of political economy. It means 
that a foreigner becomes a natural citizen ; he is in- 
natured, so to say, to the country he joins ; he be- 
comes the same as a natural-born citizen, and his 



68 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



children by birth become citizens. Herein is involved 
the central idea of this discourse, that a man is a cit- 
izen by nature^ that he is a member of the state by 
natm-e, in other words, as we have used the phrase, 
by birth. That is, this naturalization is simply taking 
a man out of foreignness, out of an exotic condition, 
and making him indigenous to the new soil, making 
this his natural place, restoring him to a condition 
of nature here. To his children, even as to seeds 
that drop from a transplanted tree, this becomes their 
native soil ; they grow up on the same earth where 
their parents last lived, they bloom beneath the same 
sky, they are obedient to the same laws. 

This is naturalization. And here I am reminded, 
frequently and sadly reminded, of what our Saviour 
said ; that the children of this world are wiser in 
their generation than the children of light. As to 
certain of these things in the state to which I have 
referred, men have gone straight forward, and acted 
in a rational and common-sense way ; but in mat- 
ters of the Church they have bungled shockingly. It 
is nowhere distinctly decreed, indeed, in the Consti- 
tution of the United States, that the rule of succes- 
sion to the rights, duties, and privileges of citizen- 
ship shall be just as I have stated, by birth. Yet 
this is the great principle that underlies our country, 
our history, our laws, our entire being as a nation. 

I appeal to legal gentlemen before me if it is not 
so. And if these legal gentlemen are so wise in 
their own affairs, why will they not help us in ours? 
Why will they not throw some light on the darkness 
of us ministers, who are supposed to represent the 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



69 



children of light ? For of a truth this whole church 
matter is in Egyptian darkness. As regards the 
state, birth constitutes the prime law of relation to 
it. Even naturalization is no exception to this rule, 
since it only indicates an attempt to bring all such 
residents as happen not to be born here, into this 
birth condition. My conclusion is, that really, in 
any true idea of the Church, in the actual condition 
of any true Church, birth constitutes a ground of re- 
lation to it 

Does history or experience throw any light on this 
subject ? This principle is not only implied, it is 
distinctly asserted, in the Jewish economy. The orig- 
inal covenant with Abraham was to him and his 
seed for ever. And this is the key to all the subse- 
quent history of the Jews. So Moses uses this strik- 
ing and most appropriate language : " Now these are 
the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments 
which the Lord your God commanded to teach yon, 
that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to 
possess it : that thou mightest fear the Lord thy God, 
to keep all his statutes and his commandments which 
I command thee ; thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, 
all the days of thy life," — i. e. all the years of thine 
existence as a nation. The rule of circumcision is ex- 
plicit: " He that is eight days old shall be circumcised 
amongst you, every man-child in your generations, 
he that is born in the house." When the law was 
publicly proclaimed, they were directed to " gather the 
people together, men and women and children, that 
they might hear and learn, and that their children 
which had not known any thing might hear and 



70 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



learn to fear the Lord." So of particular rites and 
ordinances, as the Feast of the Passover, and the 
Tabernacles ; these were to be kept by the Israel- 
ites and their children through all generations. In 
other words, Judaism, in all its extent and import, 
established and perpetuated itself on the basis of 
propagation. 

Will it be said that, among that ancient people. 
Church and State were one? What difference does 
that make ? Even if these become separate, as with 
us, how does the principle of continuity by birth fail, 
or hold in one case more than the other? This rule 
does apply to the State of these times, why should 
it not to the Church ? 

I turn to the primitive Christian era, — when a 
Church was formed, so to say, w^ithout any State ; 
when in the midst of corrupt and wicked nations a 
new element of spiritual life developed itself, and a 
community arose containing within its bosom the 
germs of both Church and State, but of a much purer 
type ; and in those times, I shall contend, the principle 
to which I have adverted prevailed. I shall stand 
on this, until evidence to the contrary, of the exist- 
ence of which I am ignorant, shall be produced. In- 
deed, I shall insist that this idea of natural perpetua- 
tion, or perpetuation by birth, was transferred, bodily, 
from Judaism to Christianity. It underlies the whole 
Gospel system. Christ could have had no other ex- 
pectation than that his kingdom was to descend from 
father to son through all generations. So Christ 
called the little children to him and blessed them, as 
if, at the very earliest possible point, to win and ini- 



BIRTH-RELATIOX TO THE CHURCH. 



71 



tiate them to the coming dispensation. So Peter 
says, " The promise is unto you, and to your chil- 
dren." So Paul calls us the spiritual seed of Abra- 
ham. Young Christian women are to love their 
husbands and their children. Children are to obey 
their parents in the Lord. John rejoices that the 
little children are walking in the truth. Paul ex- 
pressly argues that Christianity is thus continuous, 
in order that the promise may be sure to all the seed. 
There is the remarkable passage (1 Cor. vii. 14) where 
Paul, alluding to the question whether a Christian 
might marry a heathen, says, if two persons are so 
married, let them not separate, — for the unbeliev- 
ing husband is sanctified by the wife, and the un- 
believing wife is sanctified by the husband; else 
were your children unclean ; but now are they holy." 
" Already," says Dr. Neander, commenting on this 
passage, the children of Christians were distin- 
guished from the children of heathen, and might be 
considered as belonging to the Church." ^' 'We have 
here," he adds, " an indication of the preeminence 
belonging to children born in a Christian commu- 
nity." 

Am I mistaken in saying that the original Chris- 
tian Church could have contemplated nothing else' 
than that the Church of the fathers would be- 
come the Church of the children, to the end of all 
things? Or are we in this taking some things for 
granted which do not exist? Are we begging the 
question ? I mean, is the Church, like the State, like 
the family, to be considered one of the permanent 
and comprehensive institutions of the race ? I have 



72 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



supposed it was so. I have argued on that suppo- 
sition. Is there any mistake here ? Was the Church 
designed for one age ? Was it ever designed for a 
limited class of human beings? Is the Church to be 
considered like a committee of arrangements got up 
for an occasion, and expiring when the occasion 
ends ? Is the Church like a copartnership, that ends 
with the death of its members, or may be terminated 
at any moment by dissolution ? 

I will further illustrate my point by putting it in 
this light ; that as things are, even in our most erro- 
neous parishes, the Church has, as it were by nature, 
as it were on this simple basis of birth-relation, a 
good deal to do with you, with each one of the peo- 
ple, with men, women, and children indiscriminately ; 
and out of this I shall argue that you all indiscrim- 
inately have a certain vital, natural birth-relation to 
the Church. For instance, the Church through its 
pastors visits all your families, saints and sinners ; 
it mxarries you ; it buries you ; it invites you all to 
its sanctuary ; it preaches to you, prays for you, pro- 
nounces its benedictions on you all ; it has its direc- 
tions, its consolations, its admonitions, its helps for 
you all, without respect of persons. You have the 
Bible, the Church constitution and laws, in all your 
houses. Your children attend the Church Sunday 
schools. The Church, so to say, gives the Sabbath 
to you all alike, and you all suspend your secular busi- 
ness on that day. More ; as I showed a while since, 
the Church asks your aid, for its meeting-houses, for 
the pay of its ministers, and for its various benevo- 
lent objects. Now what is it that brings this church. 



BIRTII-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 73 



or me, its pastor, into this near personal connection 
with you all ? It is this of which I speak, nature, 
birth. I mean, that as this church has had connec- 
tion with the parents, so it has connection with the 
children, because they are your children. Whatever 
tie binds you to the Church or its minister becomes 
a tie of nature in your children, and will continue a 
birth-tie in your children's children. I am called to 
bury a child. Why ? Why not somebody else, why 
anybody ? For the simple reason that you have a 
certain connection with the Church, and the child is 
your child, and I am pastor of it, because it is your 
child. 

In many places a minister, that is, an officer of the 
Church, formerly would not, in many places now 
such a man will not, bury an unbaptized child ; be- 
cause it did not belong to the Church, and the Church 
could take no cognizance of it, and it could not be 
admitted into consecrated, that is, Church burying- 
ground ; and unshriven, unblest, it was sent to 
moulder in the desert. But Protestant ingenuity 
has contrived a way to avoid this shamelessness ; 
our ministers will go to work in a common-sense 
way, and bury such children, while at the same time 
they waive all allusion to the Church which in reali- 
ty employs them. So, too, they would not marry 
unbaptized persons ; and would not now, save that 
our secular rulers, wiser in their generation than the 
heads of the Church, have so managed matters as to 
take this affair of marriage wholly out of ecclesias- 
tical control, and hence by a sort of necessity the 

7 



74 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



clergy I refer to are driven to compromise their 
ground somewhat. 

Well, if I, if this church, of which I am pastor, 
holds this important and responsible relation to you, 
you all hold an important and responsible relation to 
me and the Church. As the President of the United 
States holds an important relation to all the people 
of the land, so do I, your pastor, to all the people of 
this parish. And as all the people of the Union hold 
a certain important and natural relation to the Pres- 
ident, and to the government he represents, so also 
do all the people of the parish hold an important and 
natural relation to me, the pastor, and to the Church 
which I represent. As the people of the United 

1 States, in their successive generations, are born into 
these important relations to the State, so are these 

\ parishioners, in their successive generations, born 
into important relations to the Church. 

There is involved here a plain principle of recipro- 
city. If I hold a religious relation to you, you hold 
a religious relation to me ; if I am your Christian 
preacher, you are my Christian hearers; if I am un- 
der church obligations to you, you are under church 
obligations to me. Will any reply, that neither 
they nor their fathers were technical members of the 
Church, and therefore the principle we have been un- 
folding does not apply to them or their children ? Bat 
you are church-goers, church-worshippers, church- 
supporters ; you have come yourselves, and brought 
your families here, for months and years; you con- 
sider me, the pastor of this church, beholden to you 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



75 



and your families, and on the principle of reciprocity 
you are in like manner beholden to me and the Church. 
But more than this. On the principle of naturali- 
zation, which the world happily furnishes us, you 
are brought into intimate relations to the Church. 
Granting that your parents were not church-mem- 
bers ; grantiilg that you, before you came hither, 
attended no church ; your very coming here, and 
being here, and staying here, naturalizes you to this 
church. I grant we have prescribed no term or 
method of probation ; only I say this, that any man 
or family that truly worships here, belongs here ; 
any one that awakens in behalf of himself or his 
family a pastoral and church interest, is so far obli- 
gated to the pastor and the Church. As regards a 
great multitude who consider themselves in a sense 
aliens and foreigners to the Church, they connect 
themselves with it by naturalization ; and this covers 
the whole ground, — covers it not only for them- 
selves, but their posterity after them. 

Some have a notion they are only connected with 
the Society. A man the other day told me, he had 
indeed paid something to the Society, but that he 
did not belong to the Church ; and clearly intimated 
that he was under no sort of obligation either to 
the Church or the pastor, I am not, in any high 
and proper sense of the term, pastor of a society. 
The Society is a thing of the law ; the law makes 
and unmakes societies ; the law of the Society has 
changed many times in this country. I am pastor 
of a church; was ordained over a church. The 
Society, as a legal entity^ I have had nothing to 



76 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



do with; I never attended one of their meetings; I 
know not that I ever looked into its book of records. 
So that, really, I have little or nothing to do with 
the Society. Here, indeed, may be some interesting 
questions, not as yet settled, which I shall not now 
enter upon. Now, when men who have been here 
year after year, with their families, and have involved 
me in intimate relations with themselves and fami- 
lies, turn round and say that they have only had a 
certain connection with the Society, and clearly 
imply that they are under no sort of obligations to 
this Church of Christ, or to me, its pastor, what do 
such things mean ? We are all at loose ends on 
this subject. It is in the hope of being able to do 
something toward setting us right, that I say what 
I have, and perhaps weary you with topics of this 
sort. 

I hold this for self-evident, that, in a Christian com- 
munity, the people hold important relations to Chris- 
tianity ; that in a community of churches, in other 
words, in a Church community, a Christian Church 
community, they hold important relations to the 
Church. For instance, that here in New England, 
here on New England soil, the people here, all of 
them, old and young, hold as vital connection with 
our Christian Church here, as they do with the politi- 
cal State here ; and if the Church here is under any 
sort of obligation to labor for, pray for, bless a single 
man, that man is under equal obligation to love and 
cherish the Church. If a man has rperely a financial 
connection with the Society and has no obligations 
to the Church or its pastor, — no moral, religiousj 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 77 

high obligations, — then the Church has no obliga- 
tions to him. On common principles of justice, he 
cannot expect the pastor to do any thing for him, or 
his family ; if he is sick, he cannot expect the pas- 
tor to visit him; if he should die, he cannot expect 
the pastor to bury him. Indeed, he has no pastor, 
no church. 

Will you say that, by pressing the analogy between 
the State and the Church, I must needs imply a na- 
tional religion, as we have a national government ? 
We have in an important sense a national relig- 
ion, we are called a Christian nation, we are part 
of Christendom. I wish we had more national re- 
ligion, I do not want to see a national creed. How- 
ever, it is granted that, as a people, we are divided 
on theological subjects. There are Jews amongst 
us, and Mormons, and all kinds of notions. But 
suppose the worst. Suppose there were but one 
true Church in the land, and that this assembly, 
gathered in these walls, were it; the case would not 
be altered, the argument would be the same. We 
who are assembled here would all be beholden to 
that Church, we and our children after us for ever. 
Inasmuch as, in virtue of being born, or living here, 
you belong to the State, so in the case supposed 
would you in a sense belong to the Church, even if 
there were no other church in the land. 

But you say, even if all persons in a sense belong 
to the State, they are not allowed the highest privi- 
leges of citizenship till they are twenty-one years of 
age, and they cannot fill certain offices till they are 
older than that. True, but they enjoy a multitude 
1^ 



78 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



of state privileges before that period. Every one, 
at birthj shares and enjoys the protection of the laws 
and care of government. Every child has the privi- 
lege of schools, of the highway, of support, — of a 
thousand things. A babe that shall be afloat on the 
wide sea, a thousand leagues away, is still under 
protection of the flag that symbolizes the nation. 
In many of the old churches, custom, if not canon, 
prescribed an age when persons should begin to 
commune, that is, be admitted to the highest privi- 
leges of church-membership. In England this age 
is sixteen years. In that country a particular age is 
prescribed also as necessary to the holding of various 
offices of the Church. There is no more difficulty 
in respect of the Church than of the State. Even 
here in New England, while our platforms are silent 
on the subject, universal custom, as well as common 
sense, without fixing upon the precise age a man 
must reach, always requires a certain maturity of 
mind and heart in those who would exercise ecclesi- 
astical functions. 

In this analogy between the State and the Church, 
we come to another interesting and important point. 
You say that all are not citizens, that some have 
forfeited their state rights, that for crimes and mis- 
demeanors they are shut in prisons. Will you ob- 
serve this, — that every man is presumed to be a 
• worthy citizen until by competent tribunals he is 
proved to be a wicked man ; that the normal, natu- 
ral, birth condition of every man is citizenship ; and 
that any change in that relation is an after affair, a 
superinduced and artificial event ? But the point is 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



79 



this. As the State has the power of punishment, 
so the Church has the power of discipline ; a power 
given by Christ, often exercised, too often abused ; — 
but she has the power. As the State can outlaw or 
attaint, so the Church can excommunicate. You 
see what the State does in assuming that every man 
belongs to it, except on the condition above stated. 
Has not the Church as good a right, is not the 
Church of consequence enough, holds it not suffi- 
cient breadth of place in the permanent interests of 
this world, is it not imperatively bound, to consider 
all men in a certain sense connected with it, until 
by an overt act of wrong-doing they become liable 
to its censures, or provoke its penalties ? Popular 
usage, as you well know, reverses every thing; it 
presumes nobody to belong to the Church, or to have 
any thing to do with it, until by some special act 
in after life they render themselves proper candidates 
for its favor ; — thus, in a Christian community, in all 
our Christian congregations, virtually unchurching 
the great majority, excommunicating our wives and 
little ones, actually damning the infant at its sainted 
mother's breast. 

There are in all communities recusants both to 
Church and State, commonly known as Come- 
outers ; we have them in this country. All I have 
to say about them is, the Church can get along with 
them as well as the State. The best way, perhaps, 
is to let them alone. Let the Church reach and 
bless them if it can. Yet in many instances that 
which calls itself the Church has so conducted, I 
do not much wonder men leave it. Their duty 



so 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



in the case, however, would seem to be to revive and 
perpetuate a true church form and feeling among 
themselves. Of course I need not say, if the Church 
or the State does wrong, sins against God, and vio- 
lates human conscience, no man is bound to obey 
or to regard it. 

Will you remark some singular results ? In a 
town not a thousand miles from here, where is 
what is called a society, a meeting-house, a Sun- 
day school, Sabbath services, for the most of the 
time a preacher, an organ, a choir, I was told by one 
of the parties interested, they were not a church. 
A relisfious societv without a church! I have heard 
of a state without a king, a church without a bishop ; 
but it was reserved for the present time, so fertile in 
improvement and invention, to produce a religious 
society without a church. Again, it has happened 
durins: the relio:ious controversies that have agitated 
Xew England, that the entire body of so called 
church-members, with their minister, have with- 
drawn from a given parish, while the majority of the 
people from conscience* sake remained. The ques- 
tion I would ask is, Did no church of Christ re- 
main ? Sometimes the non-conmiunicants have 
themselves gone off and built up, I vras going to 
say, a church of their own. Did they not become a 
church of Christ, — that in which, as we believe, was 
all truth, all evangelical doctrine ? 

My friends, we are in a position happily, provi- 
dentially adapted to rectify the errors of the past ; 
at least for ourselves, and our children after us. 
We reject the dogma of total depravity, we reject 



BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 



81 



the fable of regenerative baptism j which was in- 
vented to heal what the other destroyed. \ye admit 
baptism, and do not at the same time cast off the 
baptized ones. We believe at least in the inno- 
cence of the babe ; we believe at least that the child 
has a susceptibility of goodness, and of the Chris- 
tian life; and we see in baptism a seal of the cove- 
nant which God would make with us and ours for 
ever. We recognize, too, the higher privilege of the 
Holy Communion. And is there any thing to hin- 
der us and all Liberal Christians from taking that 
stand which God would have his Church adopt? 
Will not these adults feel, will they not go on to feel, 
that, as it were by a species of naturalization, they 
sustain vital, interesting, solemn relations to the 
Church ? Will you not educate, train your children 
to feel that they, by birth, because they are your 
children, likewise hold these most affecting relations 
to sacred things, and are growing up members of 
Christ and of one another ? Will any man of you 
ever again tell me he has no obligations to the 
Church ? 

Like the genius of a departed faith, I stand 
here in the midst of the desolations which for ages 
have been sweeping over the world, the desolations 
of error and superstition, bigotry and craft, that 
have swept over the Zion of New England; I stand 
in the midst of men who have gi'own cold, selfish, 
and indifferent to every thing relating to the Church ; 
in the midst of dark and forbidding influences, sur- 
rounded by the monuments of deserted truth, I 
stand here to appeal to you, to lift my voice in the 



82 BIRTH-RELATION TO THE CHURCH. 

midst of the desolations, and beg and plead with 
you, that the Church of God may have a place in 
your hearts. I ask that an attachment to it may be 
revived, or created, in your souls. 



I 



SERMOX yi. 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY THE ExVMILY AXD 
THE STATE. 

I SPEAK coxCERNixG THE CHUECH. — Ephesians V. 32. 

ss 

There are three great enduring and divine or- 
ganizations of men, or, if you please, social relations 
of human beings, the Family, the State, the Church. 
I call them endming, because as long as m.an lasts 
on the earth they will last ; I call them divine, be- 
cause they have their foundation in the will of God. 
I might with equal truth say they have their founda- 
tion in nature, but this would be a tautological ex- 
pression, since nature is of God's ordaining and the 
creature of his power. I am aware of discussions 
that proceed on the hypothesis of man as a pure in- 
dividual or solitary being. Sometimes we hear the 
expression, man in a state of nature. But, for all 
practical purposes, man never is a purely individual 
or solitary being. He always is in society, and, if 
you please, out of a state of nature ; not a felicitous 
phrase, I allow, since nothing is. more unnatural than 
the solitary state. At least the great mass of those 
of whom this discourse speaks, and to whom it refers, 



84 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 



are to be considered in this light. An infant is in 
society, most helplessly, most pitiably so. It is in 
the family. Birth implies society. All human be- 
ings around me exist in some form of society. Man 
is social in his nature, and ever tends to some mode 
of assembly, aggregation, or whatever we may call it. 
Man is not complete, not developed, not perfected, 
except in mutual relation with his fellows. An ex- 
ample of purest individuality or extreme solitariness 
of a voluntary sort, may be found in the species of 
monks called anchorites and hermits. An instance 
of an involuntary sort is seen in persons condemned 
to the solitude of a prison. We conceive both of 
these cas^s to be departures from the great law of 
humanity. 

Well, since men must come together, what are the 
leading modes of that union ? We have said these 
are three, the Family, the State, the Church, At 
the basis of these lie three leading ideas or senti- 
ments : religion, which expresses our relation to 
God ; morality, which expresses our relation to our 
fellow-beings in general; conjugal affection, which 
unites the human race in pairs. These organiza- 
tions and these ideas are prime, fundamental, and 
universal. In all parts of the world, in every age, 
among all races, you will find men uniting on these 
forms. Man eternally tends to the infinite, which is 
religion ; he eternally tends to an intercourse deter- 
mined by geographic, or lingaal, or other affinities, 
which is politics; man and woman eternally tend 
together, which is love. That is, there is no people 
without a Family, a State, and a Church ; albeit in 
many instances the forms of these things are very 



THE FAMILY AND THE STATE. 



85 



rude and the point of junction very dimly defined. 
At least, in proportion as man advances in civiliza- 
tion, the more entirely and distinctly are these affin- 
ities made manifest. Yet I can hardly recall even a 
savage tribe that does not, either by priesthood or rit- 
ual, by altar or worship, express its relation to God. 

I am aware that I use the term Church in rather 
a wide sense. I do not mean by it the Christian 
Church alone. "We often hear the expression, the 
Jewish Church. There is also the Mohammedan 
Church. So everywhere is that, which, organically, 
expresses a people's relation to its God. A term, 
again, that expresses the idea of State is Politics, or 
we say men unite for political purposes. A syno- 
nyme for State, very nearly, is Government, Country, 
Empire. Different forms of states or governments are 
monarchies, republics, and all the intermediate shades 
of civil polity. The object of government, as ex- 
pressed in the Constitution of Maine, is to establish 
justice, insure tranquillity, provide for our mutual de- 
fence, promote the common welfare, and secure the 
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. 
People unite in the Church for religious purposes, 
to cultivate their higher natures, and sanctify them- 
selves before the Lord their God. There is hardly a 
good synonyme for Church ; we sometimes borrow 
the Jewish phrase Zion ; in our vernacular we have 
a rude way of expressing it, by the words meeting-, 
meeting-house. There is the Christian Church, 
wherein people unite for Christian and religious 
purposes ; or for religious purposes as modified by 
Christ. It is of this that I now speak, and when 

8 



86 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 



I use the word religious^ it will be in the sense of 
Christian-religious. 

We denote the Family sometimes by the words 
house, household, domestic relations, conjugal tie, 
and the like. There is a word that expresses the 
deep thing which the Family is to us, that is, home. 
The Family continues the race on the earth, in it 
are nurtured some of our deepest affections, to it 
evermore gravitate the hearts and the loves of all 
well-regulated minds. 

The Family is holy, the State is holy, the Church 
is holy. That is, in their true actuality, they are all 
forms in which men devote themselves to what is 
agreeable to God. In other words, they are all of 
Divine appointment. 

In some countries, chiefly in such as are monarch- 
ical, there is what is called a union of Church and 
State. The king or monarch is head of both. This 
is particularly the case in Russia and England. The 
constitution of the Church in those countries, like 
that of the State, is purely monarchical. The peo- 
ple have no more rights in the one than in the other. 
In this country there is a separation of Church and 
State ; and what is noticeable, while the Constitution 
of our State is republican, that of some of our 
churches is purely monarchical ; as the Roman Cath- 
olic, the Episcopalian, and the Methodist. The 
reason is, that these churches all retain essentially 
the same constitution they had before the Revolu- 
tion. The people have no rights in either ; the peo- 
ple cannot determine their own creed, nor settle 
their own minister, nor consecrate their own church 



THE FAMILY AND THE STATE. 



87 



edifices, nor form their own churches. All these 
depend, not on the king indeed, but on a power 
above them, called a prelacy. Most of the New 
England Churches, however, as the Unitarian, 
L'niversalist, Baptist, Swedenborgian, and some 
others of the Trinitarian communion, have what 
is called a congregational constitution, which in 
church matters means the same as democratic in 
state matters. The congregation, the people, rule 
or determine their own affairs. 

The law of the Family is determined partly by 
the State, and partly by the Church. Its gi'eat prin- 
ciple is mutual love. The State says what shall con- 
stitute marriage, and the Bible says how" married peo- 
ple shall behave. In Roman Catholic countries, I be- 
lieve, the Church controls marriages altogether. Yet 
in general it may be observed, the Family in its essen- 
tial constitution is wholly independent of the State. 

The State in some regions is very large, as Rus- 
sia, China ; in others small, as Denmark, and some 
of our particular States, as Delaware. The Family 
consists essentially of two, husband and wife, and 
directly and collaterally it enlarges, but, as com- 
pared with other organizations, is always smaU. 
The State is geographically limited, the Family is 
confined to the house ; the Church, in its true idea, 
is universal. Of particular churches, some are 
large, some small. 

Man tends evermore to society, we say; and in 
addition to these three dominant organizations are 
others, smaller and secondary. The most interest- 
ing of these is the school. This is not essential, 



88 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 



like the Family, the Church, and the State ; since it is 
conceivable that the Family or the Chm'ch should 
educate the children. The school is a convenience ; 
families combine and hire some one to educate their 
children in common. In this country the State says 
families shall so combine. The Church blesses the 
school. In some countries the Church interferes 
and directs the school. There are other organiza- 
tions, some of business, which we call companies or 
incorporations ; others of conviviality, called clubs ; 
others of pleasure, that go by various names, — assem- 
blies, parties. But none of these secondary organ- 
izations are everlasting. We spend only a few days 
at school, we dissolve our companies, we are at a 
party only of an evening. We are always in the 
Family, in the State, in the Church ; this is a cardinal 
distinction. We are born in the Family, and in 
some form continue in it till w^e die. We are born 
in the State, and are always its subjects, and always 
claim its protection. So we are born into the Church, 
and are always members of it. This, I mean, is the 
true idea. Our relation to the Family, in some 
sense, terminates at death, and so does that to the 
State ; our Church connection continues beyond the 
grave. Or however it maybe with these others, the 
Church at least, beginning on earth, survives in 
heaven. 

Next as to the use of words. The definition of 
State, Government, Country, is political society, but 
its proper name is State, Government, Country, &c. 
The definition of Family is married society, the prop- 
er name is Family. So of the Church, the definition 



THE FAMILY AND THE STATE. 



89 



is religious society, but this is not its name. The 
only na^ne for the Church is the Church. All organ- 
izations, collections, meeti ngs of men, are societies ; 
but each of the societies, of the principal and univer- 
sal ones at least, has a distinct, or proper, or generic 
name^ as well as a definition. So in other things; 
rose is a kind of flower, brook is a form of water, 
but the proper organic nam.e is rose^ brook. Now 
in regard to every thing else but the Church we use 
language properly. We never say, the political so- 
ciety of Maine is large and prosperous. We say, the 
State of Maine is large and prosperous. Yet when 
we come to speak of the Church, we always use the 
definition^ and not the name^ and say, the religious 
society, or perhaps more curtly still, the society^ is 
large and prosperous. A man never says his married 
society is small, but his family is small. So we 
say, the State, or, synonymously, the government, 
empire, of Great Britain is powerful ; we do not say, 
the political society of Great Britain is powerful. 
Country^ again, expresses the deep sentiment of the 
state, the nation ; and a man with feeling exclaims, 
O my country ! So home expresses the deep senti- 
ment of the Family, and one cries out, Shall I never 
see my home again ? As regards this other thing, 
there is nothing left but to say, O my religious so- 
ciety I Society is a terribly cold word; there is not 
a particle of warmth in it ; it is a mere term of the 
intellect, of philosophy, or of law. 

I say these three great everlasting forms of human 
society all have a name, a proper name ; but here in 
this community, and elsewhere, we always call two 

8* 



90 THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 

of them by their proper names, and the other rarely 
or never ; we call it by its definition, a thing almost 
unexampled in the whole use of language. There are 
what we call, and rightly enough, societies ; as Tem- 
perance, Tract, Colonization Societies. These are not 
the eterneJ forms of human society ; they are tem- 
porary and special organizations, for which there ex- 
ists no proper nam.e. 

Now, as to the use of the word church for the 
place of worship or building in which a church 
meets, it is natural, and agreeable to all analogy. 
The word house expresses not only a building in 
which a family resides, but the family itself. There 
are many instances of this in Scripture. Cornelius 
"feared God, with all his house." So city m.eans a 
local place ; as one says, I am going to the city. It 
means, also, the people of the city ; as, the city was 
in an uproar, or the city voted so and so. So bench 
means a seat ; it is also used to signify those who 
sit on it ; as, in legal phrase, the full bench decided 
so and so. So, among the Jews, Synagogue meant 
a collection of people, and the place in which the 
people collected. So Church expresses not only a 
people religiously associated, but, agreeably to all 
philological analogy, it expresses also the place where 
they meet. Then, again, the building is very prop- 
erly called churchy because the building, if properly 
constructed, if rightly cared for, becomes a symbol 
in wood and stone of our faith and love, our zeal 
and devotion. 

Curiously, with many, the building, the wooden 
walls, is called the Church, while the people, the 



THE FAMILY -AND THE STATE, 



91 



living souls, are called the Society. This week, in a 
religious newspaper, I saw the term Church used a 
dozen times, more or less, as applied to the building, 
and Society invariably used as applied to the people 
that worshipped in it. 

There are the words meetinfy- and meetin2:-lioiise. 
Meeting is a mere synonyme of society^ and expresses 
just as much. It is no proper name ; it is a terra of 
definition. All assemblings together of human be- 
ings are meetings or societies ; the term expresses 
the simple fact of passing out of the individual into 
the social state. The legislature is a meeting, a pic- 
nic is a meeting, the state is a meeting, the famiily 
is a meeting, a party is a meeting. Yet, in speaking 
of the legislature, one never says he is going to 
meeting. Speaking of going to a party, you never 
say, I am going to meeting. This peculiar use of 
the word meeting is, in the main, an Americanism, 
and a vulgarity. Nobody uses it in dignified dis- 
course. 

According to the true theory of our subject, every- 
body is in the Family, in the State, in the Church. 
Yet the power of expulsion is claimed for each of 
these great organizations. Expulsion from the State 
is called banishm.ent, or outlawry, a thing more prac- 
tised in ancient than modern times ; expulsion from 
the Church is called excommunication; from the 
Family, disowning. This expulsion is one of the 
greatest calamities that can befall a human being. 
To be an outlaw, or an excommunicate, or a dis- 
owned, — to have no country, no home, no church, 
— is among the greatest of evils. 



92 THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY THE 

"Well, every man is presumed to be in the State, 
the Family, the Church, until, by due process of law, 
by overt offence proved against him, he is formally 
ejected. The point is not for a man to show cause 
why he should be in the Church, but for the Church 
to show cause why he should not be there. In these 
times, the State does not directly outlaw people, but 
in cases of high crimes and misdemeanors virtually 
does this by sending them to prison. Such offenders 
cease to be members of the State. Their political 
or state rights are taken away. But every man 
born on our soil can claim all political or state rights 
till such offence is proved. He is a state member in 
virtue of birth. Here and there you find persons 
w^ho, in the providence of God, are out of the Fam- 
ily. Their parents are dead; their brothers and sis- 
ters, their husbands or wives, their children, all are 
dead and gone ; they have no family, no home, no 
place for the family affections to be garnered and 
family joys to be indulged. They are, in a word, 
homeless; and I ask if there is a word in the lan- 
guage that contains a more vivid picture of sadness 
and sorrow than that? Well, churchless is just as 
sad a word ; and if we had any sort of right con- 
ception of the subject, we should feel just as wretch- 
ed to belong to no church as to belong to no family. 
See how it is in the State ; look at Kossuth ; what 
is the trouble in his mind ? what affects him ? Why, 
he has lost his country ; to him there is no true Hun- 
garian state. Hungary exists, and the people, and 
her waters, and her skies ; but Kossuth's ideal of a 
state has ceased to exist. How would any one of 



THE FAMILY AND THE STATE. 



93 



us to-day feel, if, in some strange catastrophe, we all 
at once should find we had no country, no state, no 
government ; that Russia had overturned the whole 
framework of our political society ? 

There are but three great leading, divine, and eter- 
nal organizations of mankind, — the Family, the 
State, and the Church; and all men 2.x e presumed 
to be in each of them. The Family organizes the 
affections ; the State, political relations ; and the 
Church is the organization of the religious element. 
The Church expresses eternally our relation to God ; 
the State, citizenship ; the Family, the ties of husband 
and wife, parent and child. You are all interested in 
the State ; you rejoice to belong to it, and to feel that 
you are a part of it. Indeed, politics, or the manage- 
ment of state affairs, is a ruling passion with some of 
you. You are all interested in the Family, either in 
that to w^hich you now belong, or in the forming of 
a new one. What interest have you in the Church ? 
People are proud of state offices, and like to be 
called by the title of their offices, as President, Gov- 
ernor, Mayor, Esquire, Judge ; proud, too, of military 
offices, as General, Colonel. People are everywhere 
getting ashamed of a church office ; indeed, that 
good congregational title of Deacon is fast disap- 
pearing from current speech. There is no dignity 
or honor attached to it. To have an office in the 
State is honorable, and it is a breach of decorum on 
state occasions, nay, it is a great offence, to omit 
the title. To have an office in the Church is deemed 
a sort of drudgery. This shows to what a pass we 
have come. 



94 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 



The great mass of the people are all out of the 
Church. ^Yhat calls itself the Church is merely a 
select clique within what is called the Society, — a 
clique growing smaller with every year ; and the 
whole idea of the Church is fast fading from the 
popular mind. There are fathers who are unwilling 
to consecrate their sons to the service of the Church, 
not willing to educate them for the ministry. They 
yield them to the State without a scruple. The am- 
bition of our young men is not to be ministers or 
bishops of the Church, but to be lawyers, to go to 
Congress, to attain judgeships. The path of honor 
and dignity leads that way. There is little honor or 
dignity in an office in that highest of organizations, 
that empire of supremest ideas, the Church. 

My friends, I ask you if things shall go on so ? I 
ask you, as reasonable and Christian men, to help me 
lift up the Church to its true place. I am going to 
labor for this, and I want your aid. I ask you to 
accept the great idea of the Church, and adjust 
yourselves thereto. Some say people will be good 
and religious without the Church; so, I say, people 
maybe good and love one another without the Fam- 
ily ; people may be good and honest without the 
State. Break up your State and your Family, and 
see where you will be. You say we may have bad 
members. So you may have bad children, bad citi- 
zens; what are you going to do about it? You say 
the State and the Family will get on without the 
Church. Nay, they will not. 

Things have gone on in a slipshod sort of way tol- 
erably well, so far, because of an overlying and over- 



THE FAMILY AND THE STATE. 



95 



awing church sentiment, derived from our fathers. 
Moreover, the religious element, like all other deep, 
eternal elements, evermore seeks organization ; and 
if we liberal, congregational, independent Christians 
furnish the popular want with no Church, if others 
about us do not, then there is something back of and 
behind us, back of and behind the ages and all ecclesi- 
astical history, that will furnish one. Rom.anism is 
moving straight onwards to one result, almost noise- 
lessly, quite meekly in this country, to be the Church 
of Christendom. For this she is building her splen- 
did Gothic piles, at due intervals, in all the land. 
Romanism, if nothing else w^ill, will give the people 
a Church. Nothing, in the long run, can meet the 
Romish Church but the Unitarian Church ; nothing 
can meet the false Church but the true Church ; 
nothing can meet that w^iich calls itself the Church 
but that which really is the Church ; and I say, in 
face of all, let others call themselves as they may, 
w^e, the Unitarian body, are The Church. 

Now understand me, my friends ; I speak of noth- 
ing awful, arbitrary, dangerous to liberty, when I 
speak of the Church attitude that we would take. 
We are liberal, we are independent, we are congre- 
gational, we believe in humanity, we are resolved on 
progress, we labor in the highest ideas for the highest 
ideas. These are fundamental, unalterable, eternal 
principles; our Church shall be the organization of 
these great principles. Our fathers broke away from 
the English monarchical state ; did they abandon 
the plan of a state ? No. They had great principles 
of democratic freedom. They said, Let us organ- 



96 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 



ize these principles into a state. We, too, will have 
a state ; we, too, will be a state. So they organized 
or constituted those great principles into a state. In 
other words, they formed a constitution embodying 
those principles, both for themselves and their pos- 
terity for ever. And as to themselves, and all that 
they had to do with, they were the State. In this 
section of the country they said, " We do hereby 
agree to form ourselves into a free and independent 
state, by the style and title of the State of Maine." 
"What I ask is, what the time has come for is, what 
God demands is, that free and independent Chris- 
tians as we are, — we, and all in all parts who agree 
with us, form ourselves into a free and indepen- 
dent church, by the style and title of the Church of 
God and Christ, the Liberal Church, the Unitarian 
Church of Maine. 

What should be the idea of The Church? All 
that which, in the State, liberty expresses. In a 
republican, democratic state, the Church should be 
republican and democratic. It should have no creed 
but the Bible, no ultimate head but Christ. Its 
bond should be the Holy Spirit, its sentiment frater- 
nization, its purpose perfection of our being, its du- 
ration everlasting. Already w^e have the materials 
of such a Church, — ideas matured, many a sacred 
tradition to be incorporated into it, thinking and 
earnest men and women, consecrated edifices, pas- 
tors duly ordained. 

jMy friends, I call upon you all to awaken to some 
thoughts upon and some endeavors after that grand- 
est of human organizations, the Church. Disabuse 



THE FAMILY AXD THE STATE. 



97 



your minds of prejudices and errors ; and while em- 
bracing the conception, devote yourselves to the actu- 
alization of the Church. "We want that deep feel- 
ing in the heart which says, I love thy Church, O 
Lord ! You do say, all of you say, the children say, 
I love my home, I love my country. I want a sen- 
timent which says, I love my Church. I want some 
of our young men who are thinking of college and 
an education to say, I will devote myself to the 
Church, I will become a mxinister of Jesus Christ, I 
cast my lot, I fulfil my destiny, in that great divine 
organization of which Christ is the Head, and where 
apostles and martyrs are my predecessors. 

Again, I want so much Church feeling that m.en 
of wealth will so love the Church as to bestow more 
of their means upon it. I need not soften matters ; 
the simple fact is, the Church, as an organization, in 
all its ramifications and modes, needs money, just as 
much as the State or the Family needs it. It is just 
as right and proper that a man of his abundance 
should give abundantly to the Church, as that he 
should to the Family or the State. We give volun- 
tarily to the Family and to the Church, and by tax- 
ation, by a species of compulsion, if you will, to the 
State ; but the principle is the same. Every man of 
us ought to consider his church tax or church sub- 
scription just as binding, just as promptly to be 
attended to, and as much a part of his indispensable 
yearly outlay, as any other necessary expense. 

Then, again, I want our men of leisure to devote 
themselves more to the Church, to the thought of the 
Church, to the consideration of what the Church is 

9 



98 



THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 



and should be, to laboring for the Church, to extend- 
ing its influence, to deepening its purity and power, to 
looking after its minor wants, its buildings, its furni- 
ture. See, here is a man out of business. He has 
leisure and means ; he hardly knows what to do with 
himself; he reads newspapers, frequents political 
meetings, and affects many things. Let that man de- 
vote himself to the Church, feel that the Church is a 
thing to be interested in, feel how vast is its scope, 
how infinite its bearings. How the old Romanists, 
men, women, and children, loved their Church, and 
what a Church they made of it ! how their painters 
painted for it, and their musicians composed for it, and 
their architects planned for it I w4iat beautiful, what 
gorgeous needlework their women wrought for it ! 
Look once a month between this city and Hallowell 
or Gardiner, of a Sunday, and see the Romanists, 
youths and children, old men and maidens, — in 
winter snows, or mire of ]March, or heat of midsum- 
mer, — trudging afoot to their church in this city! 
What is the reason ? There are many, but the un- 
derlying reason is, they have a Church, they all 
belong to it, its history is theirs, its hopes are theirs ; 
in all its majesty, in all its promise, the Church of 
Rome fills each little boy's, each little girl's heart, as 
a part of their own being. Hence it is so difficult 
ever to proselyte them a,way from their Church. 
They are all baplized into it in infancy; it becomes 
their very essence ; they grow into its image. Hence 
none of our Protestant revivals, no Protestant prop- 
agandism, can ever touch "a Roman Catholic. If 
Romanism, v\'ith all its errors and wrongs, can build 



THE FAMILY AND THE STATE. 



99 



up such a Church, what cannot Unitarianism, or 
pure Christianity, do, if we will but set about it in 
the right way ? You say, we have not the authority 
that Church pretends to exercise. True ; neither has 
democracy the power of monarchy. But can we not 
on a democratic basis rear as glorious and goodly a 
state in this country as they have in Great Britain 
or Austria ? So on a Unitarian or Liberal basis we 
can rear as glorious and goodly a Church as any the 
world has seen. 

The true Church, the Unitarian Church if you 
will, wants painters, musicians, architects, — in a 
word, it desires that genius and art should devote 
themselves to the Church, as well as to the State or 
the Family. See how comprehensive is that word, 
" The Church." It stands for the glorious body in 
all worlds of which Christ, under God, is the head ; 
this primarily. But next, it stands for a collection 
of Christian people ; it stands for people organized 
into a pastorate or parish ; it stands for worship, 
or people met for worship ; it stands for the ordi- 
nances, and for the building or house in which such 
people meet ; finally, it is a collective idea, and rep- 
resents in one word the whole of these things. 

I have said that there is an instinct of the Church, 
as much as an instinct of the State or the Fam- 
ily, a sort of appetency for the highest organiza- 
tion of the highest truths ; a desire of fellowship and 
communion in the highest society ; and the Church 
in all ages and everywhere represents this organiza- 
tion, and men are not satisfied out of it, and mean 
some time to be in it. Yet, in this country, the 



Lof C. 



100 THE CHURCH, ILLUSTRATED BY 

instinct of the State is fast superseding that of the 
Church ; in other words, religion yields to politics. 
This was the case with those of whom I spoke ; it 
is the case everywhere. I ask you again, these mid- 
dle and mature aged men, if you are willing to give 
your freshness and energy, the meridian of your 
days, the flood of your being, to the State, and only 
reserve a few last ebbing pulsations of penitence and 
submission for the Church ? Will the Church be 
content with only that? I say, the true Church will 
not. Of course, it will receive a man at the elev- 
enth hour. But it wants your vigor, it woLild em- 
brace the full circle of your days, while, at the same 
time, it would cooperate and sympathize with you 
in all rightful ends. 

Are Roman Catholics the Church ? are the Rus- 
sians the Church ? are Episcopalians or Methodists 
the Church ? Are little companies, gathered exclu- 
sively within the various religious societies, the 
Church ? To me, to us, they are not. They may 
call themselves so, they may think so, if they will ; 
that is their concern, not mine. To me, to us, there 
can be no church, except that which has Christ for 
its head and the Gospel for its creed ; none but that 
in which humanity and nature and reason are 
recognized ; none but a liberal and progressive one. 
Therefore, to ourselves, we are the Church ; for us 
there is, there can be, no higher. Are you prepared 
for this sentiment ? Can you respond to it, " We 
are the Church." For one, here I stand; and if 
there be but three others in the wide world to 
stand by me, here I stand and say, We are the 



THE FAMILY AXD THE STATE. 



101 



Church. If this be not so, if there be aught higher 
than we, if there be aught that is the Church more 
than we, then this parish is as nothing, these walls 
and worship are nothing, then the whole thing of 
Liberal Christianity is nothing. 

No, but to us the whole thing of Liberal Chris- 
tianity, of a pure and unadulterated Christianity, is 
every thing. Where the organization of that is must 
be to us The Church ; there can be no other. We 
do not want, we will not have, nor be, a partial, or 
sectarian, or a narrow, or a bigoted church. We 
will have a church where the profoundest philoso- 
phy and science can worship and commune, v/here 
the largest humanity can worship and commune, 
where the highest intelligence and reason can wor- 
ship and commune. There is a religious element in 
science, in humanity, in reason, but these are all out 
of the sympathy of the Church ; that is, the so-called 
churches do not recognize their affinity, and men of 
science, as such, worship in no church. Yet they 
seek the fellowship of God and truth, and we will 
give it to them. I have already said that our states- 
men are oat of the Church. The Church has no 
dignity in their eyes, compared with the State. Its 
creeds, to a multitude of minds, are a set of old 
wives' fables, its sanctity a species of tallow-faced 
imbecility, its mysteries a contrivance to beguile 
weak minds. 

We can have a true Church ; God is calling us to 
restore the beauty of Zion. We can resolve our- 
selves into the Church ; we can covenant with God 
and Christ, with reason and nature, to be theirs for 

9* 



102 THE CHURCH, FAMILY, AND STATE. 

ever. We can have a Church into the fellowship of 
which all great and pure minds, as well as all weak 
and tender ones, shall love to enter, — a Church to 
which knowledge, hope, progress, and all possibilities 
of humanity shall flock as clouds, and doves to their 
windows; a Church honored and respected by the 
world ; a Church, my friends, where we may be 
happy together, where we may commune together, 
where our highest and best desires may be satisfied 
together ; a Church that shall be as an open door to 
us into the skies, where, when we go hence, we shall 
meet those who have gone before us; a Church 
where the Holy Spirit will for ever dwell, in which 
Christ is, and under and around and over which is 
God bur Heavenly Father. 



SERMON VII. 



THE CHUECH HEREDITABLE. 

THE PROMISE IS UNTO YOU, AND TO YOUR CHILDREN.— 

Acts ii. 39. 

In a discourse a few months since, I undertook to 
show that children sustain, primarily and fundamen- 
tally, a birth-relation to the Church. I now say, in 
continuation of the subject, that the children are 
included in the covenant of the Church ; that no 
church-covenant is complete that does not include 
the children ; that it is not only not complete, but 
radically and fatally defective ; that this was the origi- 
nal economy of God in the arrangement of human 
relations, the foundation laid by God in nature for 
the perpetuity of the principal institutions of the race ; 
that this was the principle that entered into the 
construction of the primitive Church. I affirm, 
moreover, that there is no other practicable theory 
of the Church ; no other tenable or rational or 
Scriptural ground on which to place it. 

The Church is not a Masonic Fraternity or an 
Odd Fellows' Lodge, into which one adult man is 



104 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



elected, and from which another adult man is reject- 
ed ; the benefits of which only accrue to the member 
during his lifetime, and do not pass over to his chil- 
dren. It is, in the strong language of the Bible, a 
heritage ; its dignity and honor, its law and constitu- 
tion, its rights and ceremonies, its duties and its 
responsibilities, descend from parent to child even so 
long as there shall remain a seed on the earth. It is 
not a business partnership, nor an association for 
moral improvement, nor a meeting of an evening ; it 
expresses the eternal form of human beings in that 
eternal relation to the worship of God, communion 
with Christ, and everlasting progress of the soul. By 
hereditable, I mean this : that as our political con- 
stitution descends from the fathers to the sons, 
so does that of the Church ; as the pecmiar prin- 
ciples that govern us as a nation descend from 
father to son, so do those of the Church ; as the 
whole thing that w^e call the State is transmitted, so 
is the whole of that called the Church. Just, too, as 
this church edifice is an inheritance from our fa- 
thers, and we shall transmit it to our sons, so is all 
that w^hich this edifice symbolizes, — Christian truth, 
W'Orship, liberty, progress, unity, immortality. 

I affirm, that the analogy of all history of all 
times and places and subjects, favors the view 
herein expressed. For instance, in ancient Greece, 
w^here the Church and State w^ere one, or w-here the 
administration of public religious and political af- 
fairs w^as under one general direction, both Church 
and State were hereditable ; in other words, the 
children w^ere born into one as much as into the 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 105 

other ; the covenant of the fathers included the chil- 
dren ; each generation took up the prevailing insti- 
tutions where the preceding one left them, and possi- 
bly carried them to greater perfection. The form of 
recognition at Athens was a simple registry of names, 
and this was done three times ; first, in the year of 
birth ; second, at the age of eighteen ; the third, at 
twenty ; all the rights of citizenship and church-mem- 
bership simultaneously and in due order of time ac- 
cruing. No Athenian could be deprived of any relig- 
ious privilege unless he had been convicted of some 
great offence. The same is true of Rome, and indeed 
of every country the history of which has reached us. 
The form among the Romans was a change of dress. 
Young people wore a gown bordered with purple, 
called the toga prcetexta; at the age of sixteen they 
put on the toga virilis^ or manly gown, which was 
also called toga pura^ because it was purely white. 
These seasons of registry among the Greeks, and 
of change of apparel among the Romans, were 
solemnized by religious observance. In these, as in 
other instances to which we might refer, there was 
a period of infancy and minority, and of majority 
or manhood. But the essential point was birth and 
age. In the Church, as in the State, there is perhaps 
what may be termed a minor membership and a 
major membership. 

But I wish now to inquire more particularly what 
the Bible teaches on this subject, and what is God's 
revealed will. And first I shall ask attention to the 
Abrahamic covenant, which gave a character to the 
whole Jewish history, and from which also Chris- 



106 THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 

tianity derives a certain complexion. We read in 
the book of Genesis, that God said unto Abraham, - 
" Behold, I make my covenant with thee, and thou 
shalt be a father of many natioiTs, and I will estab- 
lish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed 
after tliee^ in their generations^ for an everlasting 
covenant^ to he a God unto thee^ and thy seed after 
thee,^^ This was the token of the covenant, that 
every man-child at eight days old should be circum- 
cised. Here is the foundation or beginning of what 
for the sake of convenience may be called the 
Abrahamic Church, or Abrahamic State, or Abra- 
hamic dispensation. This wa& before Christ, about 
the year 2000. Here w^as a solemn covenant, com- 
munion, fellowship, between Abraham and God. 
And all the children^ as fast as they ivere born^ loere 
born into it; and at eight days old they ivere circum- 
cised as the seal of their membership. These few 
words express the theory and the fact of the vv'hole 
Jewish economy. To Abraham Isaac was born, 
and he was included in the covenant or Church ; to 
Isaac succeeded Jacob, and so on. There is no 
halting, no intermission, no questioning. 

After about four hundred years Moses led the 
Israelites, the Abrahamic Church, out of Egypt, and, 
with some additions to their laws, rites, and customs, 
they were established in the land of Canaan. But 
the rule of succession and the rite of recognition 
underwent no change. The Abrahamic Church was 
hereditable. These Israelites are called a holy peo- 
ple, a kingdom of priests, and also saints. They are 
said to be sanctified, and this in anticipation, this of 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



107 



children yet to be born, of generations that only in the 
way of nature would be connected with what had 
gone before them. All this is true and plain. I do 
not know that anybody doubts it, I do not know 
that anybody misunderstands it. You may ask how 
those as yet unborn, who had done neither good nor 
evil, could be called holy. The fact is, they were so 
called. God himself did not hesitate to predicate holi- 
ness of all the children of those included in his cove- 
nant with Abraham. " Ye shall be to me,'* he says, 
" a holy nation.*' " All the congregation is holy, 
every one of them." Ye are the children of the 
Lord your God." The presumption was, that every 
child was holy ; holy according to the standard of 
.Judaism, until the contrary was proved; just as un- 
der our state economy every citizen is presumed to 
be honest and innocent until the contrary is proved. 
In the Abrahamic or Jewish Church, provision was 
made against transgression, as is done in our politi- 
cal state. If a man violated the law of God, he was 
to be dealt with. So if a man violates the law of the 
land, he is dealt with. The result was, that all the 
Jewish men, women, and children were in the Jewish 
Church; the majority, the masses, the people, were 
there ; the exception being here and there one who 
had been cut off. 

Now, whether this was well, or wise, or judicious, 
it was just what God, so far as he had any connec- 
tion with Judaism, wished should be. It was what 
he expressly ordered, and so to say, stipulated for. 
We are shut up to this conclusion, that God, in ar- 
ranging the economy of the Church, so arranged it 



108 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



that it should be hereditable ; placed it on this basis 
and no other; excluded every other basis, that he 
might put it on this. True, the Jews were not al- 
ways faithful to their God, their covenant, and their 
Church. And they suffered severely for their sins 
and follies. But what w^as it that brought them 
back to fidelity ? It was the remembrance of the 
responsibility they were under to their God, their 
covenant, and their Church. These responsibilities 
never left them in all their declensions and backslid- 
ings ; and their covenant relation to God was ever 
urged upon them as a motive to virtue and perfec- 
tion. So far our way is clear. 

Two thousand years elapse, and Christ appears. 
Now I desire to ask, if the economy, purpose, or 
plan of God respecting his Church changed ; changed, 
I mean, in the particular of which I am speaking ? 
Doubtless there were changes, Moses is changed 
for Christ, Judaism for Christianity, universal wor- 
ship succeeds worship at Jerusalem, universal love 
national love ; God enters into a new covenant, or 
relation, with his children. We leave the Jewish 
Church and enter the Christian Church. But has 
the law of succession changed ? Is not the Church 
still hereditable ? If there be a change, I know no 
evidence of it, I can find not one particle of evidence 
of it. Can any man direct me where I shall find 
even the first hint of such alteration ? Indeed, there 
is nosuch evidence ; indeed, the testimony, as I shall 
presently show, is all the other way. The covenant 
blessings of God seem to have been confined hitherto 
to the Jewish nation. Christ comes and scatters 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



109 



these blessings over the world. A stream of Divine* 
favor seems to have been flowing through Judea, and 
when it reached the borders of that land to have 
stopped, and, as it were, risen very high. Christ 
comes and breaks down the gates, and lets the 
waters of life flow over all people. His ministration 
includes, not merely the lineal descendants of Abra- 
ham, who had often proved themselves unworthy of 
everlasting life, but Greek and Roman, Barbarian 
and Scythian. Christ would establish a universal 
Church ; God, he says, will enter into covenant with 
all races, and I am the mediator of the New Cove- 
nant. Believe in me, he says, and accept the prom- 
ise God makes through me. The seal of the old cov- 
enant was in the flesh, the new one is in the heart ; 
the old law was written on tables of stone, the new 
one in the mind. Believe this to be true that I tell 
you. It is glad tidings, it is the Gospel, and you, 
John and Peter, go and proclaim the glad tidings. 
The old law, or " the law," as it is concisely called, 
the law of Moses, was defective ; it said. An eye 
for an eye ; the new law says. Nay, resist not evil ; 
the old law said. Kill your enemies ; the new. Love 
them ; the old said. Salvation is of the Jevv^s ; the 
new. Salvation is for all ; the old law made the body 
holy ; the new makes the spirit holy. 

There were great interior differences between 
Christ and Moses, between the Christian Church 
and the Jewish Church, but were there administra- 
tive differences ? Was not the rule of succession the 
same ? Did not the children of the Christian Church 
inherit the Christian Church ? The covenant with 

10 



110 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



Abraham was hereditary in its operations. And 1 
ask you particularly to observe, that this covenant 
was for all nations. Yet for two thousand years it 
was confined to one nation, the Israelites. Now 
when Christ came with his liberal, human, cosmo- 
politan purposes, when he came to open the door of 
the true Church to all men, the Jews, or their teach- 
ers and chiefs, took umbrage, and for this cause per- 
haps more than any other they compassed his death. 
Even the Jewish Christians could not for a long 
while get over their feeling of exclusiveness. Salva- 
tion is of the Jews, was a sentiment ever ringing in 
their ears, and blazing before their imaginations. 
Hence a dispute, and in settling this dispute you get 
a key to all of Paul's Epistles. In the light of the 
question now agitated, these Epistles of Paul become 
luminous and beautiful. 

Paul says, God made a covenant with Abraham, 
for all nations ; and the promise, the old, original 
promise, was, that in his seed all the nations of the 
earth should be blessed. But hitherto only the Jew- 
ish nation has been blessed. But Christ has come, 
argues the Apostle, who is the seed of Abraham, and 
in him now all nations are to be blessed. Every- 
body, anywhere, Jew or Greek, who believes Christ, 
and accepts the great principles he inculcates, enters 
into the covenant of the promise, and is a child of 
God. So far all is clear. But I ask attention to 
this : Paul claimed that the old covenant made with 
Abraham two thousand years before was fulfilled, 
completed, or rather, fully carried into execution, by 
Christ. But the Jews, or the Judaistic Christians^ 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



Ill 



said, See here : we have a law; it was given by Mo- 
ses four hundred years after the time of Abraham ; it 
prescribes circumcision, sundry washings, new moons, 
sabbath-days, various rites and ordinances, — in other 
words, quite a variety of outward works ; and we 
insist that that law remains, and is binding ; and, 
even if one does become a disciple of the Nazarene, 
he must still keep the law. Very well, Paul says, 
then you are going to make all men Jews ; you will 
have them all circumcised, and he that is debtor to 
any part of the law is debtor to the whole ; and 
there is no possible escape for any man. But the 
original covenant with Abraham included all nations, 
and your law, which was four hundred and thirty 
years after, cannot disannul the covenant before con- 
firmed of God in Christ, to be ultimately accom- 
plished in Christ. In plain words, Paul says salva- 
tion has come to the Gentiles. Christ has redeemed 
us from the curse of the law, your law, — from the 
curse denounced on such as violate it; we have 
nothing more to do with it ; and all, that the bless- 
ings covenanted to Abraham might come upon the 
Gentiles. In a word, according to Paul, the Abra- 
hamic covenant is not only fulfilled, but, as it were, 
revived, and truly developed in Christianity. This 
too, I believe, is generally admitted. But the great 
point back of all this is wholly lost to view, that the 
original Abrahamic covenant and Abrahamic Church 
included the children, was hereditable. 

This fundamental principle, I argue, underwent 
no change. The Christian covenant and the Chris- 
tian Church, however in other things it may differ 



112 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



from the other, must in this agree with it, that it also 
includes the children. There is a difference, a change 
in an important particular ; circumcision was the seal 
or token of the Abrahamic covenant ; while, with most 
pedobaptists, baptism takes the place of circumcis- 
ion. But circumcision was the sign that the child 
was in the bosom and fellowship of the Abrahamic 
Church, as a minor, indeed, at first, but afterwards 
as a major ; and why should not baptism be a seal 
or token that a child is in the Christian Church ? I 
know that infant baptism nowhere among the sects 
that we are most familiar with is so regarded. 

I insist that as God did with Abraham, so also he 
did with Christ, establish a covenant with him and 
his seed after him, in their generations, for an ever- 
lasting covenant. And the seed of Christ are those 
who believe in him. Peter, in the text, emphatically 
declares, " The promise is unto you, and to your 
children." This, then, is my first direct argument 
from Scripture for maintaining that the Church is 
hereditable, or includes the children, — the connection 
that St. Paul declares to subsist between the Abra- 
hamic and the Christian covenant. 

2. Another reason for the same view is this : 
Christ is made the heir of all things. The inherit- 
ance which had been in the hand of Abraham or 
Moses, now passes into that of Christ. But we are 
joint heirs with Christ, or we are heirs of God in 
Christ, not Abraham, and our children inherit with 
us of very necessity. An inheritance is of course 
hereditable. This new dispensation, this new cove- 
nant, this that we call the Christian Church, the in- 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 113 

heritance that the Apostle speaks of, is hereditable. 
" We have an inheritance in the kingdom of God ; 
" in Christ we have obtained an inheritance." (Eph. 
i. 11.) " We are heirs according to the promise." 
Judaism had been the inheritance, the Jews were 
heirs, and they thought themselves sole heirs. No, 
Paul says ; and here was the point which was a mys- 
tery to the Jewish mind, and which — not the Incar- 
nation, not the Trinity — is the mystery of the Gos- 
pel, that " the Gentiles too should be fellow-heirs, 
and of the same body, and partakers of God's prom- 
ise in Christ ; which in other ages (in the times of 
Isaac, and Moses, and David) was not made known 
unto the sons of men, but is now revealed unto the 
holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit." (Eph. 
iii. 5, 6.) Of course, then, I say, as the Jews and 
their descendants had been heirs of the original cove- 
nant, and all its rights and privileges, so are we and 
ours, in all senses of the word, heirs under the new 
dispensation. " And if we are Christ's, we are Abra- 
ham's seed, [as really as the Jews,] and heirs accord- 
ing to the promise." (Gal. iii. 29.) 

Paul's idea seems to have been something of this 
sort, that God really entered into covenant with 
Abraham, not for the Jews only, but for all the 
world, and all time ; but that the Jews had somehow 
monopolized the covenant till Christ came, who re- 
stored its true meaning, and applied it to its true 
use, that of distribution equally among all the races 
of men. Hence he says v/hat I have just quoted. If 
we are Christ's, we are verily Abraham's seed, and 
10* 



114 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



heirs according to the promise originally made to the 
patriarch. 

3. My third argument for a hereditable Chm'ch, or 
that the children of the Chm'ch belong to the Church, 
is found in the express declaration of Scripture. 
Our text would seem to be decisive, — The promise 
is unto you, and to your children." This is said im- 
mediately after the ascension, when the disciples 
began to adjust themselves to their great work, and 
is spoken to the Jews for the purpose of winning 
them to the new covenant. But its intent cannot be 
mistaken. It is the Christian promise ; or, if you 
please, it is the old Abrahamic promise now revived 
in Christ. But the point before us is,Jt is for " the 
children." It is the same language God had em- 
ployed in all ages, and its import could not have been 
misunderstood, that God would covenant with them 
lor their children, or for their children in them. 

There is this remarkable passage : The unbeliev- 
ing husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbe- 
lieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were 
your children unclean; but now are they holy." 
(1 Cor. vi. 14.) The Jews were called holy because 
they were a covenant people of God ; their children 
were deemed holy because they were included in the 
same covenant. The concluvsion is irresistible, that, 
inasmuch as the children of believing parents are 
declared by the Apostle to be holy, they must of 
necessity be included in the Christian covenant. 

The case is this. The Bible, in the Old Testa- 
ment, jnesumes all Jev/s to be holy, and their chil- 
dren with them : " Ye shall be to me a holy nation " ; 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



115 



Every male child shall be called holy to the Lord." 
In the New Testament, it presumes all Christians 
to be holy, as Paul calls them holy brethren, holy 
women, elect of God and holy, and then' children with 
them. If holy here means consecrated to God, it 
means that the children, as well as the parents, are 
consecrated. Not but that Jews and Christians, par- 
ents and children, may sin, as w^e know they did 
sin. I say the fact may be that they sin, but the 
presumption in the Bible is that the children of good 
parents will be good. Just as, in the United States, 
the presumption is that the people are republicans and 
lovers of liberty, although there may be people here 
who are monarchical in principle. This presumption 
covers the children. In a Mohammedan country, the 
presumption is that all the people are temperate, and 
that the children will grow up into temperance, and 
be consecrated to total abstinence. Yet the fact 
may possibly be that som.e drink wine and strong 
liquors. We are obliged to presume one thing or 
the other, and address ourselves accordingly. The 
passage last quoted presumes the children of believ- 
ers to be believers, minor believers, and deals v\dth 
them as such. There are presumptive heirs to the 
throne of an empire, and they are always addressed 
and treated as such, even though they may die, or 
rebel, or abjure their country long before the expected 
place is vacant. 

4. jMy fourth argument is drawn from the lan- 
guage of Christ touching children, and his manner 
of treating them. Christ came to renew the cove- 
nant of God with man ; he came to gather into one 



116 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



those that were near and those that were afar off; he 
came, if you please so to say, to form a Church, a 
true Church. Had he any regard to the children ? 
If so, what ? Did his scheme include them ? Did 
his own heart embrace them ? He commanded par- 
ents to bring them to him, he took them into his 
arms, he blessed them ; and thus, as it would ap- 
pear, signalized his entering into everlasting cove- 
nant with them. He declared, Of such is the king- 
dom of heaven. The phrase kingdom of heaven, or 
of God, so often used by Christ, does not refer 
directly to the life beyond the grave, but rather to 
this ; or I may say it refers to that through this. The 
immediate kingdom of God which Christ had in 
mind was to be developed here on the earth. It 
means, hov\^ever we view it, at least as much as the 
word Church. I think it stood to Christ's mind as 
synonymous with the goodly Church he would plant 
and foster in all the world. If, then, children belong 
to the Christian kingdom of God, they certainly be- 
long to the Christian Church. When Paul says, 
" The children of a believer are holy," he says no 
more than Christ affirmed, that " they are of his 
kingdom." It does not admit of a doubt that the 
purposes, scheme, economy, and whole heart of 
Christ, comprehended the children. How he yearned 
and agonized for such a result ! " O Jerusalem ! Jeru- 
salem ! how often would I have gathered ^Aj/ children 
together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her 
wings!" This may mean the whole people of the 
city, but it certainly must signify the little children 
also. Forbid them not to come unto me." We 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



117 



are not to throw the least obstacle in the way of the 
smallest child borne in its mother's arms entering 
into the covenant of God in Christ ; it must be con- 
secrated, dedicated, to God, to Christ ; and if so con- 
secrated or dedicated, it of course belongs to his 
Church. The idea of a child coming to Christ, and 
being declared to be of his kingdom, and being 
blessed by him, — and not being in his Church, still 
remaining outside of his Church, and being, as we 
say, in the world, a stranger from the covenants of 
promise, — is a simple absurdity, a monstrosity. 

5. My fifth argument comes from the way in which 
the Apostles, after Christ, or, as we sometimes say, 
the Apostolic Church, treated children. There are 
the declarations already cited ; first, that of Peter, 
made upon the very introduction of himself to man- 
kind as a Christian minister, — " The promise is 
unto you, and to your children ; second, that of 
Paul, who takes it for granted, a thing which nobody 
doubted or ever thought of bringing into dispute, 
that the children of believers were holy. And, in 
reviewing the action of the Apostolic Church, we 
must not disregard the final injunction of Christ to 
his disciples, " Go, teach all nations^ baptizing them," 
&c. It is w^ell argued that nations must include the 
children of a nation. I am not now speaking of bap- 
tism, as an external rite. I have little doubt, the real, 
deep, efficacious baptism that Christ meant was a 
spiritual baptism. I am not now inquiring whether 
infants ought to receive water-baptism. The point 
is, whether, with or without baptism, the children of 
the Church belong to the Church. Whether, indeed, 



118 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



baptism here means spiritual influences or water ap- 
plications, and whether, as most suppose, it is a 
token of the Christian covenant and a seal of 
church-membership, or not, whichever way we look 
at it, it would seem to include the children. Lydia 
was baptized, and her household, or family. Paul 
baptized the household or family of Stephanas. I 
am not going to affirm there were children in these 
households. The presumption is, there were ; at any 
rate, the whole family, more or less, great and small, 
became of the Christian Church. Paul uses this 
language : Salute the church that is in such or such 
a house, or family. The house or family, parents 
and children, were accounted as constituting the 
church. The jailer at Philippi believed and Vv^as 
baptized, vrith all his house. The Baptists say, there 
could have been no infants in that family, for infants 
cannot believe. I will not commit the folly of say- 
ing the jailer believed for his children, if he had any. 
I do say, this father, as every father ought to do, ac- 
cepted Christ as the Saviour, Shepherd, Divine Head 
of himself and his children, ^ — accepted Christianity 
as the religion of himself and family, and took all his 
little ones with him, and all that should be born unto 
him, into the new covenant; and if there was a babe 
of but a day old, he said to Paul, take that too, seal 
it with the great seal, it shall grow up into the faith 
of Jesus. Again, we read that a nobleman of Ca- 
pernaum believed, with all his house, and tha.t Cor- 
nelius feared God, with all his house. We have a 
dozen or more instances in which the house, the en- 
tire family, is nriost sacredly connected with the great 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



119 



movement Christ and the Apostles were starting in 
the world. Now those have undertaken a very hard 
work, who shall convince me, or anybody, that there 
were no little children in those families. The pre- 
sumptions, the known facts of all time, are against 
such a notion. I shall claim there were children 
there, until the contrary is proved. 

Well, these children were included in whatever 
included the parents, whether we call it the Church, 
or the new covenant, or the Christian system, or 
what not. So Christ says, This day is salvation 
come to this house." To show this church connec- 
tion of the children, the Apostles use this language 
of spiritual affection and Christian fellov\^ship : Sa- 
lute them that are of Aristobulus's household ; 
greet them that be of Narcissus's household." Of 
course, here is implied the Christian and church 
fraternization and communion of the children. Into 
whatever house the Apostles entered, they were 
directed by their Master to say. Peace be to this 
house ; peace, harmony, love, benediction. Christian 
harmony, love, benediction ; this was to be their 
first salutation, first address. Again, when the dis- 
ciples sold their possessions, when they continued 
with one accord in the temple, when they went daily 
from house to house, breaking bread, — men and 
women, fathers and mothers, — in the nature of the 
case, they must have had their children with them. 

I pass now to the direct mention of children. 
John writes to a church sister thus: The elder to 
the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the 
truth." He closes in these w^ords : " The children of 



120 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



thy elect sister,'' that is, the children of my wife, my 
own children, greet thee." Again, he says, I re- 
joiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in 
truth.'' Christianity gradually formed itself into an 
institution ; it developed itself in what I have called 
the oro^anization of the Christian relis^ious element, 
in other words. The Church. As we say of our 
meetings, of any sort, it came to order. It had its 
officers, its bishops or pastors, and its deacons ; and 
we trace at once an intimate church connection be- 
tween these church officers and their children. The 
bishop or pastor and the deacon are to rule well their 
own houses and children, having them in subjection 
with all gravity or soundness. They are directed to 
have faithful children, children of the Christian faith. 
Then Paul wills that the younger Christian or 
church women marry and bear children. These 
same women, now embraced in the new covenant, 
are also exhorted to love their husbands and their 
children. By and by the Apostles meet these assem- 
bled Christian families, that gradually expand into 
a more universal Church, and see how he addresses 
them all alilvc. Parents, he says, love your children ; 
children, obey your parents in the Lord, i. e. Christ ; 
as Christian children, as included in the new cove- 
nant, as members of a common household of faith. 
So he says, Wives, as we now say. Christian wives, 
church wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands ; 
husbands. Christian husbands, cherish and nourish 
your wives even as your own flesh, for so Jesus cher- 
isheth and nourisheth the Church. In a word, the 
whole household, children and all, is now presumed 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



121 



to be a Christian household, and are all gathered 
into the Church together, and are all spoken to and 
treated as component parts of one great spiritual 
communion. 

The principle is, that if the parents are believjers, 
or if one parent is a believer, the children are' holy. 
Or, as Solomon expresses it, The just man walk- 
eth in his integrity ; his children are blesseS^ after 
him." Where the Apostle is writing to one of these 
entire communities, recently formed, as in the Epis- 
tle to the Ephesians, for instance, we find it addressed 
to the saints at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ 
Jesus, " which does at least mean,'' argues Dr. Bush- 
nell, " that the Epistle is addressed to Christian hreth- 
ren. And among these, 'children'^ are directly ad- 
dressed in the same way as other micmbers of the 
fraternity. The same is true in the Epistle to the 
Colossians, wherein we see children familiarly recog- 
nized with their parents among the adidt Christian 
disciples, and addressed in the second person, with 
as little thought of impropriety as the adults them- 
selves." I submit, without further citation, that, in 
the Apostolic times, wherever you look, in all that 
is expressed by the words Church arrangements, 
Church privileges, Church distinctions, Church re- 
sponsibilities, the children Vv^ere included. I do not 
know nor care whether Lydia had children or not; 
the whole spirit of the system then taking its rise in 
the world includes the children. The Church which 
we see the Apostles devoting themselves to erect 
w^as not a Masonic Fraternity, or Odd Fellows' 
Lodge ; it was like the State, or Commonwealth ; it 
11 



122 



THE CHURCPI HEREDITABLE. 



was indeed a ^ew, divine Christian state and 
commonwealth, in which the promise was to them 
and to their children. The Apostles labored wholly 
in the spirit of the old covenant with Abraham, 
that God was making a covenant with those first 
believers and their seed after them, to be a God to 
them and their seed for ever. I may say more; the 
people of those times knew no other way of doing 
things ; God, I may say, had trained the mind of the 
generations to no other modes of thinking; to no 
other forms of action. A man leaving Judaism or 
Paganism, and embracing the doctrine of Jesus, on 
entering the Church, took his wife and children with 
him, feeling that God had set his sanctuary in the 
midst of them, that he should dwell therein, and his 
children, and his children's children, for ever. Than 
this idea of separating parents from children in the 
fellowship of the Church, perhaps you could con- 
ceive nothing more revolting to the whole Oriental 
mind, Jewish or other, which always cherished with 
extremest sacredness the parental and filial ties, and 
studied to secure the highest blessings to the children. 

jNIy last — argument, I was about to say, but the 
subject is beyond argument, it has the force of fore- 
gone sentiment and conviction, — the last illustration 
of the great truth I have endeavored to set forth is 
found in the action of the Christian Church, imme- 
diately subsequent to the era of the Apostles. The 
records of that period are few, but all corroborative 
of the same general vievv^ Among the earliest Chris- 
tian gravestones is one commemorative of a little 
child; it is inscribed thus: "Here lies Zosimus, a 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



123 



faithful^ descended of faithfuls, aged two years, one 
month, and twenty-five days." Here, as in a pic- 
ture, the whole thing is seen. That little child was 
in the covenant of its parents. It was a believer, 
descended from believers. Gregory Nazianzen, one 
of the earliest of the Christian Fathers, particu- 
larly commends his mother, that not only was she 
herself consecrated to God, and brought up under 
a pious education, but that she conveyed it down as a 
necessary inheritance to her children." Clement of 
Alexandria describes a primitive Christian family 
in these words : " The mother is the theme of the 
children's praise, the wife is the theme of her hus- 
band's praise, while God is the theme of the united 
praise of all." (Neander, p. 175.) The same is ex- 
pressed in their views about the future world : 
There a vast multitude of them that are dear to 
us await us, a multitude of parents, of brothers, of 
children." As the Passover had been the funda- 
mental covenant feast of the Mosaic religion, and 
children partook of it, so the Lord's Supper be- 
cam.e the fundamental covenant feast of the Chris- 
tian religion, and the children partook of it." (Nean- 
der.) We even find parents frequently giving the 
sacred emblems to their own children. I do not 
know as it admits of question, that, in the first ages 
of the Church, the children of believers were all 
considered as of the Church ; I mean prior to the 
fourth century, which is the beginning of the great 
Dark Age of our era. At a later period, chil- 
dren were received into the Church : not in conse- 
quence of birth however, but solely by baptism. 



124 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



The doctrine of Total Depravity had sprung up, and 
this at once unchurched, unchristianized, and con- 
demned all children. But there was not wanting 
a remedy for this difficulty; the notion was con- 
ceived that the water of baptism regenerated the 
child ; and so children recovered their standing in 
the Church through baptism. An unbaptized infant 
was out of the Church, out of the covenant of grace, 
out of heaven, and, as St. Augustine unequivocally 
taught, was damned to everlasting perdition. 

Such is the doctrine, my friends, and these are its 
proofs. Such is a portion of my own implicit faith. 
Nor is the view here advanced without confoma- 
tion ; and that, too, from a source rather unexpected. 
First, Dr. Bushnell's book on Christian Nurture is 
really founded on the doctrine I have endeavored to 
unfold. He does not say as much as I do, or speak 
so plainly, but the same train of thought runs all 
through what he has written. The object of his 
book is to show, in his own words, " that the child 
is to grow up a Christian." That too I believe. 
He lays no substantial basis for such a belief; that I 
have endeavored to do. 

A further confirmation is afforded in a little book, 
entitled " The Baptized Child," by the Rev. Nehe- 
miah Adams, of Essex Street Church, Boston, a 
Calvinist. Mr. Adams says, speaking of Christ 
blessing little children, " If Christ referred to the 
Church on earth, infants have in his view a certain 
relation to that Church ; and this relation may have 
such meaning and benefit in it, that, if they die in 
infancy, they are transferred to heaven." Infants, 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



125 



then, have relation to the Church. What rela- 
tion ? Such that, if they die, they go to heaven. 
This is a pleasant vray of avoiding the real point, or 
of not exactly saying what one thinks. That rela- 
tion is, that infants are in and of the Church. Again, 
Mr. Adams uses this very strong, very significant 
language: Children were formerly included with 
their parents in promises and threatenings, blessings 
and curses. This is a principle in the government 
of the ivorld; and when God revived his Church in 
Abraham, this principle came into view ; and the 
admission of children into covenant with their par- 
ents was grafted upon it. It has its foundation in 
our nature^ and cannot cease hut ivith the parentctl 
relation. So that the question which some ask, 
' Whether the Abrahamic covenant is abolished,' 
is lost in the question. Has that principle of the Di- 
vine government ceased, upon which God formerly 
included the children of believers in his covenant 
with their parents? "' Has that principle ceased, — 
a principle in the government of the world, founded 
in our nature, and which cannot cease? INIr. Adams 
is apparently in a dilemma, and discordant with 
himself. He says the principle cannot cease. But 
as if this were saying too much, he asks if it can 
cease. This question he does not answer. But a 
more important, a more momentous question, has 
not been propounded to the American churches. 
Mr. Adams, however, does say that he considers it 
" a great principle in God's government of the world, 
which existed even before the Abrahamic covenant, 
and will last to the end of time," that there is " a nat- 
u * 



126 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



ural connection of children with their parents in the 
divine constitution," in other words, the Church. 
This really expresses the whole idea, and all I have 
said, — that there is a natural connection, a birth- 
relation, an inherited right, of children to the Church ; 
or that the children of the Church, by " a natural 
connection," belong to the Church. 

Again, Mr. Adams says, " God, at baptism, re- 
ceives the child into the number of those to whom 
He stands in a peculiar relation " ; that is, in plain 
words, into the Church, according to the Calvinistic 
view of it. He adds, that parents, when they join 
the Church, must avouch Jehovah to be the God 
and portion of their children,^^ a thing I never saw 
done anywhere. He says again, ^' If God has not 
in any manner signified his will that the admission 
of children into covenant with him through their 
parents should cease, — and this we nowhere find 
that he has done, — the baptized child is of course 
received into special relation to God." Here Mr. 
Adams wellnigh asserts, what it has been one ob- 
ject of this discourse to prove, that the principle in- 
volved in the Abrahamic covenant has never ceased. 
Need I say any thing more ? Will any one ques- 
tion the soundness of my views. Yet here in New 
England the principle has ceased, practically ceased 
everywhere. Mr. Adams, addressing the baptized 
child, says, and underscores the words, " God looks 
upon yoii as His child, your parents gave you to Him 
when you were baptized." Mr. Adams says, the 
pious Israelite had great comfort in the fact that 
his children were included in the covenant; and he 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



127 



adds, " If believers now do not enjoy this privilege," — 
they certainly do not, — " they are deprived of a great 
blessing, and that too under a dispensation which 
professes to be superior to that which is past, in the 
richness of its blessings." He continues, " This privi- 
lege is not restricted to one age or dispensation ; it 
grows out of the natural relation of parents and 
children. When God would mark by a peculiar 
token the covenant made by Him with believers, He 
selected the natural affection of parents for their chil- 
dren^ and as it were sanctified or set apart this instinct, 
to be a sign between Him and them." Mr. Adams, 
in these extracts, does not appear consistent. He at 
one time makes the connection of children with the 
Church turn on baptism^ and at another he says this 
relation has its foundation in nature^ the natural con- 
nection of children with their parents in the divine 
constitution." The idea and import of baptism I 
shall by and by recur to. I am now simply asking. 
What is the foundation of the children's relation to 
the Church? It is not baptism; that is another 
thing. I conceive it to be, as Mr. Adams again and 
again admits that it is, the same as it is in the state 
and the family, the natural connection between par- 
ents and children. 

I have a few explanations to make. I have used 
the word hereditary, I think I am not misunder- 
stood. / do not mean that personal character is hered- 
itary^ I do mean that that which is potent in forming 
personal character is hereditary. I do not mean thai 
virtue is hereditary^ I do mean that the supports and 
incentives to virtue are hereditary. I do not mean 



128 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



that regeneration is hereditary ; I do mean that the 
divine means and method of regeneration are heredi- 
tary. I say the Church is hereditable, as I say the 
State is ; and that there is no other foundation for 
the perpetuity of either. The Bible is hereditary, 
the Sabbath is hereditary. This that we call Christ 
Church is an heritage ; this building, or some other 
in its place, we shall transmit by natural succession 
to our children, as we have received, it from our 
fathers ; this worship is conveyed in like manner, the 
influence of this church, its organic life, our princi- 
ples, our truths, our liberality, the form and fashion 
of our thoughts, we likewise send down. In the 
State we inherit the constitution and laws, the rights 
and privileges of our fathers. In the State they 
designed that we should, they covenanted to this 
very extent. In the Church we have no such cove- 
nant. Both in State and Church, we often all live 
at the same time, old and young, parents and chil- 
dren, testators and heirs, to enjoy these blessings in 
common. 

There are the terms believers, Christians, the Church, 
— how would I have them used? There is every 
shade of belief ; all kinds of believers. I certainly do 
not mean by believers the little company, here or any- 
where, who to-day may unite in the Lord's Supper. 
I trust they are believers ; but there are more be- 
sides. The great majority of this congregation, as 
to the fundamental truths of Christianity, are be- 
lievers, to the extent that all the duties and obliga- 
tions of Christianity may be predicated of their be- 
lief. And that is belief enough for the true Church 
theory to proceed upon. 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



129 



" Christians^^' — who are Christians ? I shall quote 
from the report made to the New York Legislature 
on a petition for abolishing all laws pertaining to the 
Sabbath ; a report evidently suggested by Calvinistic 
clergy, and drawn up by Calvinistic laity. It says : 
" This is a Christian nation. Ninety-nine hundredths, 
if not a larger portion of the population, believe in 
the general doctrines of the Christian reKgion ; Chris- 
tianity is the common and prevailing faith of the 
people, it is the common creed of the people." Now 
in whatever sense it be true that we are a Christian 
nation or a Christian people, just in that sense do 
all Christian responsibilities on the one hand, and 
Christian privileges on the other, belong to us. Just 
to that extent are we all, parents and children, in- 
cluded in the Christian covenant, just to that extent 
are we, as were the Jews, a holy people unto the 
Lord our God ; whether the sense be loose or strict, 
high or low, it matters not, as to the argument be- 
fore us. 

" CAwrcA," — how is that word to be understood by 
us in the practical application of this discourse ? hov/ 
the phrase, " The children of the Church belong to 
the Church " ? Certainly not as an exclusive de- 
scription of a small band of communicants, but as it 
is used in the declaration, " We are the Church " ; 
meaning all who are willing to be embodied in that 
formula, whether they are communicants or not. 

So important, my friends, do I deem the doctrine 
of this discourse, so unquestionable does the truth of 
it appear, so clearly is it revealed alike in all history, 
in nature, in Scripture, and the craving wants of our 



130 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



best men, so clearly is it of God and a part of the 
Divine economy in the government of the world, that 
I could not, for a moment, consent to assume the 
pastorate of any church that did not recognize it. I 
do not think I magnify the subject under any im- 
mediate impressions of contact with it, or from any 
sort of idiosyncrasy of feeling or speculation ; and I 
am disposed to say that no subject, or hardly any 
subject, can be proposed to the consideration, at least, 
of the New England churches, of magnitude and 
moment like this. It really underlies the whole mat- 
ter of Christian nurture and general religious educa- 
tion ; it underlies the whole matter of the method of a 
bishop or pastor with his people, and of the Church 
with whatever comes wdthin its sphere. It is in itself 
a complete basis of church action towards the young. 
It determines the mode in which the Christian min- 
ister is to address his people, and the light in which 
he is to view them. Are the children in covenant with 
their parents, or out of covenant? That is the ques- 
tion vre have got to meet. If they are in covenant, our 
duty to them is one thing ; if out of covenant, our duty 
is quite another thing. If in the latter case, I do not 
say the children are actually different, but we look on 
them in wholly another light, they assume an oppo- 
site and contrasted phase. 

You know how the case now is, — the children are 
generally out of covenant of the Christian Church. 
Does any evil result from this ? Consult, if you will. 
Dr. BushnelPs book. He says, Our children grow 
up in sin, artificially averse to religion. Our fam- 
ilies are irresponsible," — and he might have added, 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



131 



our churches are irresponsible. Our piety is itself 
desiccated as it is undomesticated, and whatever 
progress we make is wrought by methods that are 
desultory and violent, and remote as possible from all 
the natural laws of character. In short, the mischiefs 
we suffer are too evident to be suffered longer. The 
day has come when God calls us to undertake a 
remedy." You know how it is, — the children of the 
Church are all out of the Cliurch, out of the cove- 
nant ; neither the privileges nor the duties of the 
Church or the covenant, or of Christ, are supposed 
to rest upon them. The idea is, that if we can 
specially convert, transmute, make over these children, 
then they can be taken into the Church and the- 
covenant. And this idea practically prevails just as 
much in Unitarian churches as in any other. The 
notion has been branded into the American mind, 
that, to use the common phrase, one must meet with 
a change before he can enter the covenant, take upon 
himself the obligations of a Christian life, or even 
partake of the communion. 

The doctrine of total depravity, I hardly need to say, 
is the fountain-head of all this notion. This doctrine 
a,t once unchurches the whole human race, as repre- 
sented in a whole generation of children. The Ko- 
manists get over the difficulty by saying water re- 
generates. Our modern Calvinists see the absurdity 
of this, yet, still cleaving to total depravity, they only 
fall into deeper mire. Revivals are invoked to pre- 
vent the extinction of the Church. Dr. Bushnell 
sees evils enough in them. He does not strike at 
the root of the tree, he does not deny depravity, but 



132 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



he strikes boldly for this : " We must educate the 
children into piety, we must treat them as in the 
covenant " ; and he writes a book, devoted to prove 
this thesis : " That the child is to grow up a Chris- 
tian." He says of his book, " It was like a fuse 
hissing from a bomb, that threw the whole State of 
Massachusetts into a general panic." Mr. Adams 
says, " God looks upon the baptized child as his 
child." Dr. Bushnell says, the child is in the Church, 
is presumptively regenerated. Paul says, the chil- 
dren of believers are holy. 

Now the question, I grant, may not be a question 
of the absolute nature of the child, but this : " How 
shall we look upon children." If, as Mr. Adams 
says, God looks upon the baptized child as his child, 
certainly you and I may ; if Dr. Bushnell may re- 
gard the child as presumptively regenerate, you and 
I may ; if Paul regarded them as holy, so may we. 
Even leaving out the fact, tJie presumption in this 
case is every thing. The man whom I traffic with 
to-morrow morning may be a dishonest man ; but I 
have to presume one thing, either that he is honest 
or dishonest, and it is of all consequence which 
course I take. One of you, professing to be my 
friend, may knowingly give me a counterfeit bank- 
bill ; the presumption is, you will not. The Jews 
were not all holy, as Paul says, " For they are not all 
Israel that are of Israel " ; they were presumptively 
holy. So after Christ, Christians and their descend- 
ants, from generation to generation, are presump- 
tively holy. 

This presumption^ what does it amount to ? I will 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



133 



take Dr. BushnelFs illustration. You look upon a 
kernel of wheat ; that kernel contains, presumptive- 
ly, a thousand kernels of wheat; if planted, the pre- 
sumption is, it will grow and bear fruit. There is, 
how^ever, a possibility, owing to some fault of culti- 
vation, or some speck of diseased matter in itself, 
it may never reproduce at all. He applies this to the 
Christian nurture of children. If properly trained, 
the presumption is, they will grow up Christians. 
So, if Christian parents were faithful, the presump- 
tion would be that ninety-nine hundredths of these 
children of America would be growing up Christians. 
So if the Christian Church embraced the children, 
the presumption would be that all the children of 
the Church would grow up Christians. What a 
truth is here for the consideration of these parents, 
and for our consideration as a Church ! 

Here comes in the doctrine, the only reasonable 
doctrine, of imputation. Imputation, — it means what 
the presumption is in regard to men, what the light 
in which we shall regard them. I have a friend at 
a distance; he is an educated, refined, virtuous, and 
honest man, — a Unitarian, if you please. He sends 
his son, whom I never saw or heard of, to me. Now 
I, instinctively, irresistibly, impute the character of 
that father to that son. I may be mistaken, but I 
look upon him in the light of his father. I some- 
how, without knowing any thing about the matter, 
presume him to be refined, virtuous, and honest, and 
a Unitarian, and I approach him, address him in this 
light. It is in this way the righteousness, the good- 
ness, the virtues of Christ, are imputed to believers. 

12 



134 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



Now the Bible imputes the righteousness of Abra- 
ham to his descendants, and of Christ to his. In 
this sense Abraham becomes the federal head of 
the Jews, and Christ of Christians. Now granting 
that Adam fell, yet our relations are not with him. 
Abraham, and after him Christ, is our federal 
head. 

We reach another great point. The children of 
the Church belong to the Church, but " we must be 
born again," we must have the spiritual birth ! 
Children are to he regenerated in the Churchy and 
not out of it. It is absurd to say a man must be 
regenerated out of the Church and then join it. It 
is like saying one must get an education and then 
begin to go to school. If Christ be in the Church, 
and he is in the true Church, if the Church be the 
body of Christ, then the place for the sinning man 
to find Christ is in the Church, and not out of 
it. If the true law, as Dr. Bushnell insists, is nur- 
ture, then the place to receive that nurture is in the 
Church, and not out of it. The Church, the true 
Church, is the mother of her children, and is to train 
and bring them up within herself, as the mother of - 
a family. What would you think of a mother, who, 
as fast as her children were born, should send them 
out into the world, as it were disinherit them, say 
they were not of her home and heart, and yet say, As 
soon as my children become truly affectionate and 
kind, and full of filial duty, I will admit them to the 
house ? This is the V\^ay the so-called churches are 
treating their children, and in fact losing them; it is 
only here and there they can get one back into the 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



135 



Church from which in infancy they are so unnatu- 
rally excluded. 

" You \yant to get us all into the Church.'' says 
some one. So I do, into the true Church, the Church 
of God and Christ, the Church of the uniyerse, of 
humanity, of progi'ess, of all that is loyely, beautiful, 
glorious. But suppose the child, as he grows up, 
becomes dissatisfied, and wants to leaye ? If he 
reaJly wants to leaye the true Church, I should be 
sorry for him. If he wants to leaye any particular 
instance of that Church for some other, with prayers 
and blessings we should let him go. If he really 
wishes to fall back into the world, sin, and shame, 
why, he must do it, and we should leaye him and 
the consequences with God. 

In respect to the baptism of children I haye but a 
word to say. It is the seal or token of their being in 
the Church ; it is the outward imipress of the coye- 
nant. The Jews circumcised their children, the Ro- 
mans changed their dress, the Greeks registered their 
names, the Christian Church baptizes its children. 
It is a beautiful, an appropriate rite, hallowed by the 
usages of many ages, hallowed by all the associations 
of Christian sentiment. Some may say, \Ye our- 
selyes haye not been baptized, we are not outwardly 
recognized as of the Church, and will you baptize 
our children ? Yes, your children, as many as can 
be offered. Possibly you may be, unconsciously, 
members of the Church, and of course we should 
baptize your children. Perhaps you may be yery 
wicked men, and most certainly we should baptize 
your children, because, on the yery theory of our sub- 



136 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



ject, if this is the true Church, it is anxious that its 
selectest influences should be about your children ; it 
is anxious to take them into its own solemn cove- 
nant with God ; it is anxious for their growth into 
Christianity, and it feels that within itself, cer- 
tainly, if not in your family, the work of your chil- 
dren's regeneration and gracious advancement may 
go on. The Church, the true Church, would take the 
child of a wicked man into its communion and fel- 
lowship, just as quick as it w^ould into its Sunday 
School. Nor is this with us a matter of sentiment 
or feeling, nor is it any finesse, or sectarian device; 
it is a matter of profoundest conviction, of most fun- 
damental principle ; it goes as deep as our theology 
or our Christianity goes, it is an incorporate part of 
the whole system of our religious faith and practice. 
Therefore we say to each of you who has an unbap- 
tized child. Bring him to the altar, and if you have 
it not in your heart to consecrate him to God, and 
surrender him to the responsibilities and hopes of 
the Gospel, it is in the power of the Church to do it 
for you. If the believing wife sanctifies the husband, 
may we not judge that the believing child will retro- 
actively sanctify the parents ? If there be any adult 
persons who have not been baptized, we hope they 
will present themselves to receive that rite. 

There is a secondary rite, known in the Romish 
and other churches as Confirmation ; it is a period 
when the child, having arrived at years of discretion, 
takes upon itself the covenant of the Church and 
God. Dr. Bushnell suggests for our Congregational 
churches, that it be the rite of Assumption or Ac- 



THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 



137 



knowledgment, as being an assuming or acknowl- 
edging the covenant. That rite in due time will be 
solemnized in this Church. 

Recollect, in regard to the communion or sacra- 
ment of the Lord's Supper, it is not specially obli- 
gatory on a few individuals, who in technical phrase 
have joined the Church. There is a man, an excel- 
lent man, we presume, who keeps this ordinance ; 
there is his wdfe, an excellent woman, she is under 
just the same obligations to keep it. Any man who, 
as Abraham^ did, believes in God, or who loves 
Christ, or feels that he is, in any sense, of the true 
Church, should deem it a privilege to participate in 
this celebration. Do we bind, does the true Church 
bind, any man's soul, or hinder his independence, or 
mesh his activities ? God forbid. Every man here 
is free as God would have him be, free as his own 
nature virtuously developed would desire to be. Is 
he a scientific man ? the Church goes with him into 
the vast domain of the universe. Is he a politician ? 
the State is holy, and holily to be administered ; the 
true Church is in harmony with the true State, and 
the Church blesses the State. The churchman and 
the statesman are in unity. The Church only asks 
of the State, what God asks, and nature asks, and 
humanity pleads for, that it would not sin. Does 
any one want to have recreation? God has given 
you that want, and the Church recognizes its sacred- 
ness, and the Church is just as willing her children 
should play, as she expects them to pray. 

If the Church be that body of which God is the 
supreme head, and Christ the vital heart, and the 

12^ 



9 



138 THE CHURCH HEREDITABLE. 

Holy Spirit the cementing element, then the Church 
is just as vast, -as all-comprehensive, as liberal, as 
humane, as genial, as God and Christ and the Sa- 
cred Spirit are. If this Church be any feeble repre- 
sentative of the great, universal Church, then it com- 
bines within itself all these most exalted elements. 
If it be not the true Church, God forbid it should 
last another day ; if it be not, God to-day help us to 
make it so. 

Three thousand and eight hundred years ago, the 
Lord appeared to Abram in the plains of Mamre, 
and said unto him, " I am the Almighty God ; walk 
before me, and be thou perfect, and I will make 
my covenant between me and thee, and will mul- 
tiply thee exceedingly." And Abram fell on his 
face. 



SERMON VIII. 



WE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEN, BUT DARE NOT 
ADMIT THEM TO THE CHURCH. 

JESrS CALLED THEZyi UNTO HIM, AND SAID, SUFEER LITTLE CHIL- 
DREN TO COME UNTO 3IE, AND FORBID THEM NOT: FOR OF 
SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD. — Luke XViii. 16. 

When a little child dies, we say it has gone to 
heaven. We rejoice in this, we could be satisfied 
with nothing else. This not only our hearts demand, 
but our reason confirms ; with this, all our ideas 
of God and Christ harmonize. We not only feel 
that it must be so, but our doctrine definitely asserts 
it. We predicate heaven of childhood not in spite 
of our articles of faith ; rather it is one of the Unita- 
rian, the Christ- Church tenets, that children go to 
heaven. We have no embarrassment on this sub- 
ject, no other notions we entertain throw a shadow 
of doubt on this. In the fulness, the exactness, in 
all the rigor of the Unitarian faith, standing at the 
centre of our system, we affirm and feel this. 

The Unitarian faith, beginning in God as the 
central unity, is unitary, harmonious, throughout. 
It takes in the whole of humanity and the whole of 
divinity. Hence, as a system, it is complete and 



140 



"VVE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEN, 



beautiful as that of the astronomic world. ' It does not 
say to a mother, agonized at the death of her child, 
bleeding in all the depths of her affections, " True, 
you wish to think your child has gone to heaven, 
true, your maternal desires would carry it to the bosom 
of its God ; you wish ever after to imagine it happy. 
We pity you ; we w^ill pray for you ; but we must 
be cautious what we say. We know all are born in 
sin ; w^e know, w^ithout a change of nature, none can 
find salvation. We hope, in some w^ay we cannot 
explain, that the atoning blood of Christ will avail 
for your child ; but we do not know, we have no 
assurance ; we must submit, leave all to God, and be 
as easy as we can." 

No. We say, God, the one God, in v/hose one- 
ness, in whose entire, unitary universe all things are 
embraced, — this our God, we say, loves the m^other 
and loves the child, and even sent Jesus to tell us 
how much God loves little children. He has placed 
an immortal soul in the child's body, and undying 
instincts of devotion and tenderness in the mother's 
breast ; and God loves the soul of the child he has 
made, and loves the heart of the mother he has filled 
with instincts, and loves to have mothers love their 
children, and has made it a part of the eternal laws 
of his own great unitary kingdom, that there should 
be this mutual love ; and when the child dies, we 
say God still keeps hold of the child he has made, 
still embraces in his great unitary scheme the little 
one into whom he breathed the breath of life. In a 
word, he takes it to heaven ; and to these deep ma- 
ternal yearnings he says, " You may love your child 



BUT DARE NOT ADMIT THEM TO THE CHURCH. 141 



still ; these irresistible emotions are all prophecies of 
a reunion ; in other worlds, in other stages of being, 
they shall all be satisfied. One God, one love of 
God, one purpose of God, one jurisdiction of God, 
reign throughout the universe, and these shall make 
mother and child one again." Unitarianism, or the 
doctrine of the Divine unity, leads directly to this, 
that children go to heaven ; indeed, it is as a broad 
path in which little children are conducted to the 
abodes of bliss. 

" Go to heaven" ; — what is this ? Heaven is the 
holiest place in the universe, it is the most beautiful, 
the most sacred. It is, at least, a state where the 
selectest influences prevail, where the general atmos- 
phere is clearest and purest. It is the nearer presence 
of God, it is where Christ most personally appears, 
it is where angel and archangel are, and where the 
best people of whom we can conceive are congre- 
gated. This is where little children go ; and we 
sometimes conceive that angels, whose ministry is 
that of good, take charge of the little ones, and feed 
them with immortal food, and clothe them with 
immortal habiliments, and lead them by the crystal 
brooks. And we most fondly think of Christ, as he 
did when upon earth, taking them into his arms and 
blessing them, and saying. Of such is the kingdom of 
God. And it seems to us sometimes as if the old 
saints gathered about what indeed died here, but is 
as a new-born chUd there, welcoming it to its new 
position and its untold felicity. 

We are happy to have it so; we feel that our child 
is safe, that it will be taken care of, that it is gar- 



142 WE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEN, 

neredinthe everlasting fold; and wherever we go 
upon the earth, however wide may be our wander- 
ings, or deep our engrossments, or tried our lot, we 
feel that our child is sheltered and secure in that spot 
which we call heaven. This thought, I say, cheers 
and sustains us ; we would not have it otherv/ise, we 
rejoice that the child of our loins has entered the 
very centre of sanctity and goodness in all the uni- 
verse. 

This is all right, this is just as it should be, we 
say; we are glad that our faith leads to these con- 
clusions, and confirms such a result. We would not 
have our child out of that holy place which we call 
heaven, out of that inner sanctuary that the spirit- 
ual world is to us, for any thing. We sometimes 
speak as if our children ought to go to heaven, as if 
there Vv^ere no other place in the realms of thought 
fit for them. We know the waywardness and fol- 
lies of childhood, but oh! every mother feels as if 
heaven were not too good for her child. If it were 
suggested that such or such a one was a bad boy, 
the mother replies, " He will be better in heaven ; he 
was not naturally bad, and he had so many virtues! 
heaven is the true place to develop his character.'^ 

So, I say, w^hen the child dies, these feelings come 
in and we are comforted. We not only believe that 
God is just and good, but that his justice and good- 
ness extend to the comprehension of the soul and 
the everlasting destiny of our own little ones. 

Very well, all well, all reasonable, proper, and gra- 
cious. But look at another thing. Look at that 
which stands quite contrasted v/ith what we have 



BUT DARE NOT ADMIT THEM TO THE CHURCH. 143 

been speaking of. When a child is born, what do 
we do with it ? Do we feel that it belongs to the 
Church, that it is born into the Church, that it enters 
the Church, that it is a member of the Church ? O 
no! We, or at least the great mass of Christians, 
feel that their children are born into the world, born 
out of the Church. They feel that the Church is too 
good, too holy a place, an institution, or position for 
their children to be in. They hope, if their children 
grow up and get a new nature^ then they will join 
the Church. But if they should die, why, they be- 
lieve their children w^ill go to heaven just as they are. 
They wdll go to heaven if they die, but yet here, as 
they are, they are unfit for the Church I The popular 
superstition on this subject, for I can really give it 
no milder name, virtually makes the Church holier, 
purer than heaven I 

Take the popular idea of the Church, such as pre- 
vails in all New England, that it is a special collec- 
tion of people, a small but sacred body, within what 
is called the Society, and, as is everywhere under- 
stood, you have a community of good men and 
women ; they are called saints, or sanctified ones, 
they are all supposed to have new natures. God is 
thought to be in a peculiar manner with them, the 
Holy Spirit dwells especially in their hearts, they 
are conformed to Christ's image, they pray, they love. 
In every parish is such a circle, which is thought to 
be the centre of sanctity, a kind of Holy of Holies 
here on the earth. Let us suppose for a moment 
that the theory is true, that they are all really saints, 
while the rest of mankind are sinners. 



144 WE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEN, 

Now let a child be born in one of the parishes, let it 
be born, if you will, to these church-members, these 
reputed saints, and what will you do with that 
child ? where will you put it ? Will you put it into 
the Church, to be integrally a part and parcel of it ? 
Or will you put it into the world, to be part and 
parcel of that ? One or the other you must do, you 
always do. The child, according to invariable and 
omnipotent usage, at birth, enters either the Church 
or the world. Will you cause it to grow up a Church 
child, or w^ll you let it grow up as it may, with the 
hope that itvv^ill some time or other join the Church? 
Practically, there is no question as to what you will 
do, as to what everybody does here in America. 
They would shudder at the idea of deeming the child 
to be in the Church. 

Yet when the little one dies, we say it has gone 
to heaven ! We put it there in our imagination, 
our hearts, our hope. We cannot bear to think of 
its going anywhere else. And even those people 
who have the narrowest and most pharisaic notions 
about the Church are everywhere trying to make 
themselves believe their children, when they die, go 
to heaven. Here truly is something to marvel at, to 
weep over, if there were any to sympathize with your 
tears. And what is the reason of this conduct ? Ask 
yourselves. Why, the Church is so sacred a place, 
so holy a community, people think it would not be 
right to let their little children belong to it ; it would 
seem a kind of profanity to put them into it. The 
Church is taken for a kind of type of sanctity. It is 
called Zion ; it is supposed to be God's peculiar heri- 



BUT DARE NOT ADMIT THEM TO THE CHURCH, 145 

tage, it is the centre of selectest influences, and we 
dare not place our children in it It is the type of 
sanctity, I say. But what are the elements of its 
sanctity ? Are they any higher or purer than those 
of heaven ? Are they in any essential degi'ee differ- 
ent ? I am willing, for the argument's sake, to sup- 
pose the idea of the Church everywhere prevalent to 
be perfectly true, that it is the seat of highest sanc- 
tity; and then Task, Is it higher than heaven's sanc- 
tity? God, God's spirit, Christ, holiness, purity, 
love, obedience, these are supposed to be in the 
Church ; they are in heaven also. 

Are you willing, father, that your little boy, or 
mother, that your little girl, should be of the Church ? 
If you feel as most parents do, you say, No. But let 
your little boy or your little girl die ; and you say, 
" Our child has gone to heaven !" Now heaven is 
really only more sacred, pure, and beautiful than the 
Church ; that is the fact about it. 

Some may say, The Church is so bad we will not 
put our children into it." This is not the common 
idea, it is not the idea we have to combat. The 
common idea is, " The Church is too good to put our 
children into it. We do not certainly know as they 
will grow up good children, and it would be dreadful 
to have them grow up bad children, and at the same 
time be in the Church." 

But I want to inquire how you can expect your 
children to grow up good, if they are not in the good 
place, or become holy, reverent, if they are not in the 
holy, reverent, sacred place. If you would teach 
your child to swim, you put him in the water ; if you 

13 



146 



WE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEX, 



would have him healthy, you place him where 
the air is healthful; if you would have him a skilful 
mechanic, you put him where mechanics are taught 
most skilfully ; if you would have him an accom- 
plished merchant, you put him where the mercantile 
art is best understood ; if vou would have him oolite 
in manners, you like to have him go amongst the 
most mannerly people ; if you would have him rise 
to high rank as a sailor, you send him to sea. AVhen 
you would have him good, pious. Christian, you keep 
him farthest possible from those who represent the 
highest goodness, purity. Christ-likeness, the Church I 
Bat there is the Lord's Supper, and our chil- 
dren might become communicants of the body and 
blood of their Lord I *' And what if they did ? Is 
there anything dreadful about that ? If they die. are 
they not to eat of the fruits of Paradise, drink of 
what is typified as the new wine ? Are they not 
even as little children to be brought into special 
communion with Christ in the next world ? 

I need not pursue the subject. I hardly have a 
heart to. Only I think we cannot fail to see and 
feel, not only how heretical, how irrational, but how 
terribly diseased and grossly erroneous, is public sen- 
timent everywhere touching the Church, and espe- 
cially touching the relation of children to the Church. 

I thought of these thino's the other dav, when I 
was called to bury a little child. The mother felt 
her little one had gone, as we say, to a better world. 
And I felt so too. But was that mother ever will- 
ing her children should go into what is deemed the 
best portion of this world, the Church ? On so 



BUT DARE NOT ADMIT THEM TO THE CHURCH. 147 



solemn an occasionj I would not indulge in bitter 
thoughts, or venture painful suggestions. Only I 
cannot forbear asking, O ye fathers and mothers ! 
what are ye doing with your children ? God sends 
them away into the heavenly world, and you rejoice 
there is a heaven, holy and pure, for them to go to. 
Christ, so to say, stands at the door of his Church, 
and asks them to come in, and no parent is willing. 

A child is born here on the earth, helpless, weak, 
undeveloped, unperfected, liable to fall, liable to sin. 
What will you do with it? Where will you put it? 
Now, I say, if there be a holy spot, a holy community, 
a holy sphere on the earth, or a holiest, I would put the 
child into it. If the Church be that holy spot, then the 
child shall go into that. The primary holy place for 
the child is, indeed, the family ; but the great univer- 
sal holy place is the Church. Or rather, all families 
should be church families, and so all children church 
children. If the family be a bad, an irreligious one, 
then all the more should its children be gathered into 
the Church. If Zion, or the Church, be where God 
most peculiarly dwells, of all places, the children 
should dwell there too. If Christ be bread from heav- 
en, most peculiarly should he be bread for the children. 
If he be the Shepherd of his people, most peculiarly 
should he be the Shepherd of the little children. If 
the Church be the body of Christ, most peculiarly 
should the children be of it. If the Church consist 
of pious men and women, regenerate men and wo- 
men, of persons w^ho pray, who do not lie or steal, or 
profane the name of God, then that is the place of 
all others for the children. If the Church feeds on 



148 WE SEND CHILDREN TO HEAVEN, ETC. 

Christ, in a higher, truer sense than the world does, 
then, on all accounts, let the children taste that im- 
mortal, that divine food, that they may grow thereby. 
If there is less sin in the Church than in the world, 
then, whenever a child is born, we should at once 
feel that its true place is in the Church, rather than 
in the world. 



SERMON 



IX. 



CHILDEEN TO BE COMVIUMCANTS. 

HE SHALL FEED HIS ELOCK LIKE A SHEPHEED ; HE SHALL GATHER 
THE LADIES WITH HIS AR3I, AXD CARRY THEM IN HIS BOSO^kl, 
AND SHALL GENTLY LEAD THOSE THAT ARE WITH YOUNG, — 

Isaiah xl. 11. 

This language is thought to be prophetical of 
Christ It may refer to Christ, or the Christian 
Church, or the Christian ministry. At least, it is 
pertinently and beautifully exemplified in the con- 
duct and precepts of Jesus. While he was instruct- 
ing the parents, he took the little children, the lambs, 
into his arms. His last words to his disciples were, 
" Feed my sheep," " Feed my lambs." In short, the 
sentiment of the passage, whether considered in its 
prophetic intent or evangelical exemplification, is, 
that the Christian organization comprehends parents 
and children alike. In the spirit of this entire unity 
of position and privilege, pervading all ages and con- 
ditions of a given community, the prophet wrote, and 
our Saviour acted. Even the unborn are not forgot- 
ten ; but, as if the covenant of grace anticipated the 
possibilities of being, its providence and forethought 

13^ 



150 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 

extend to the future, and, like a guardian angel, direct 
into the way of life the generations as they rise. 
This is a fundamental law of the moral universe ; it 
is the principle by which God has administered 
human affairs. It obtained in the Jewish dispen- 
sation ; it was adhered to by the Founder of the 
new. 

In what is here involved is contained a part, a 
most essential part, of all my ideas of the Church, 
the true Christian Church. The principle familiarly 
stated is this : Lambs follow the sheep. However 
we treat the sheep, so we treat the lambs. If we 
can find a sweeter pasture or a clearer stream where 
we will lead the sheep, there we will lead the lambs 
also. Here you have the germ, the paradigm, the 
illustration and philosophy of all my theory of the 
Church. Lambs follow the sheep, children their par- 
ents. If parents feed on the heavenly bread, children 
feed on heavenly bread ; if parents commune with 
Jesus, children commune with Jesus ; if parents 
keep the Sabbath, children keep the Sabbath; if 
parents love God, children are to love God. And 
this from very necessity of nature, this from the 
law of birth. Lambs follow the sheep because they 
are lambs ; children follow their parents because 
they are their children, and fundamentally for no 
other reason. In more precise terms, if sheep are 
in the fold, the lambs are in the fold ; if parents are 
in the Church, children are in the Church. Lambs 
do not get into the fold because the shepherd 
performs any ceremony upon them, or they pass 
through any change ; they are there because they 



CHILDRExN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 151 

are born there. Children do not get into the Church 
because of baptism^ or any permission of the Church, 
or any formula that may be pronounced ; they are 
there because they were born there. Just as chil- 
dren are in the State and in the Family by birth, so 
are they in the Church. 

This is common sense, this is sound philosophy ; 
it is also the Bible from one end to the other. " Feed 
my sheep," says Jesus, " Feed my lambs." Peter 
exhorts us to feed the flock of God. Paul enjoins, 
" Take heed to all the flock, and feed the Church of 
God." The Church of God and the flock of God are 
the same. A flock is made up of sheep and lambs. 
Now, I am called a pastor^ that is, a shepherd ; and 
what is my flock ? You are all my flock, men, wo- 
men, and children. The children are just as much, 
just as integrally, just as essentially, of the flock as the 
parents. "Well, I must feed you all alike, give one as 
good, as pure, as heavenly food as another. The only 
difference will be, I shall simplify the food for the 
lambs, or the children. I feed you on Christ, on his 
truth, his blessedness, his spirit, his emblems ; and I 
must feed the children just as I do the parents. If 
there is any doubt about whi^t my flock is, that, in- 
deed, is another question. Show me what my flock 
is, and you define at once the sphere and the nature 
of my duties. You say such or such a one is not 
of my flock. That may be. But let me say, I con- 
sider all who are in the habit of worshipping in 
Christ Church my flock. And my church, that over 
which God hath made m.e overseer, is coextensive 
and uniform with my flock. Now will you allow 



152 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 

that this or that man or woman belongs to my 
flock? Then I shall insist that their children, whom 
they bring hither, are my flock also, and if my flock, 
then my church. 

Some say they do not understand the word chu7xh 
in the sense in which we use it. This word flock 
very neatly and very comprehensively defines it, A 
flock is a certain number of sheep under the care of 
one man, or who receive natural food from one man's 
hand. A church, speaking of things in detail, is a 
certain number of people that receive spiritual food 
from one man^s hand. If a minister, then, wants to 
know what his church is, he has only to see what his 
flock is. If there is any one present who comes not 
to be fed, but for sinister and extraneous purposes, 
of course he is not of our flock or our church. If 
any one — man, woman, or child — is here for spirit- 
ual food, for religious growth and culture, such a 
one is of the flock and of the church. I know no 
church that is made up of only a small part of 
the flock. I have no food for one that I have 
not for another ; none for parents that I have not for 
children. There are no partition-walls within Christ 
Church, no negro pews, no alien pews. Christ 
Church is its own wall. Within here, it is an open 
area of position, privilege, and duty. 

"What is the object in feeding sheep? That they 
may live and grow. What is the object in feeding 
people ? That they may live and grow. Without 
food we starve and perish. Without spiritual food 
we starve and perish. A Christian pastor feeds his 
flock, his church, that they may live and grow. He 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



153 



feeds parents and children all alike, for the same 
great end. We need life, spiritual life, in other 
words, spiritual health and strength, and we cannot 
have health and strength unless we eat. Our souls 
need to grow, all our faculties want maturing, our 
whole being should attain to the stature of perfect 
men in Christ Jesus. In order that we may grow well, 
that we may have the very best health and strength, 
we need the best food. Children, or the lambs, need 
just as choice food as the parents, or the sheep ; 
there is no difference. 

What is the design of this whole Church system ? 
Why do you build a meeting-house ? why have a 
minister ? why assemble at stated seasons ? It is 
that you may have true life, that your deepest nature 
may be developed, that you may be sti'engthened for 
every good word and work, that the Holy Spirit may 
more and more pervade you ; in brief, that you may 
become good, and better men and women and chil- 
dren. So that the whole design of the Christian 
Church touches the young as much as the old. 

Lambs, we say, are born into the fold, and children 
are born into the Church ; and being there, we know 
at once what to do with them. We are to feed them. 
And we see at once what the whole Church system is 
for. It is to feed these lambs, these children, that they 
may grow up Christians, or, if you will, good men 
and good women. We would save them from 
starving and perishing. Lambs are not born, and 
then thrown out of the fold ; neither are children 
born to be thrown out of the Church ; for if it were 
so, we should not have anything to do with them. 



154 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



Lambs follow the sheep ; children, their parents ; 
they are never to be separated. When parents are 
in a Church relation, then are the children also. If 
it were not so, if they were separated, then we could 
not feed them alike. 

Now Christ says, I am the bread from heaven ; 
he that eateth me shall live by me." If here is a 
parent who eats that bread and lives that life, his 
children must eat the same bread and live the same 
life. There is no difference. Christ says, " I am the 
vine, and ye are the branches." If here is a parent 
who is a branch, his children are parts of the branch, 
twigs, if you will, or buds, and all alike abiding in 
Christ. Christ gives us water, of which if a man 
drink he shall never thirst. The children need to 
drink that water just as much as lambs need milk. 
Christ says, " Do this in rem.embrance of me." If 
parents must do a particular thing in remembrance 
of Christ, so must the children. If the parents must 
love God and their neighbor, so must the children. 

You say that I make all the people in and of the 
Church, church-members, to use a word nowhere 
found in Scripture. So I do. But there are bad 
people here ! Now let us understand each other. 
The whole object — or at least it is sufficient for my 
present purpose to say the whole object — of the 
Church, its Sabbaths, its ordinances, its influences, is 
the attainment of spiritual life in Christ Jesus, or to 
educate Christians* Now the primary question is, 
not whether there are good or bad persons here. 
The primary question is. Are we here for the purpose 
just indicated? If so, then my duty is clear. I 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



155 



must so teach and pray and act as to aid you to grow 
up living, healthful Christians. If there are any 
here for other purposes, for foreign and wholly differ- 
ent purposes, — if there are parents here, and if par- 
ents have their children here, for reasons that have 
nothing to do with the great end of our being here, 
why, I have nothing to do with such persons to-day. 
I have nothing to say to them. I am, so to say, 
feeding out Jesus Christ to-day ; and if there are 
those here who do not want this heavenly food, pray, 
do not blame me for giving it to those who do. 
These others are certainly not my flock nor my 
church. I regard all my flock and my church, — all, 
I say, old and young, — who seek the food it is the 
province of a Christian pastor to give. 

We have been accustomed to conceive of the 
Church as a select and ordinarily small body of adult 
persons, who had met with a change, professed relig- 
ion, communicated at the Lord's table, were in cov- 
enant with God and one another, and would proba- 
bly go to heaven when they should die. For one to 
join the Church was a notable event, something that 
everybody talked about. The act of joining was 
scenic and solemn. We have been so trained to this 
idea, we can hardly think of the Church as anything 
else. But this is a very imperfect idea of the Church, 
and practically most pernicious. 

The Church is the body of the good, in heaven and 
on earth, whose supreme head is God. The Church, 
again, is a body of people associated to worship 
God through Christ. It is, again, by courtesy of 
language, a building in which such people meet to 



156 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



worship. More particularly and pointedly, the Church 
expresses that fundamental form of human society 
in which mankind unite as religious beings, for the 
worship of God, growth in grace, and the promo- 
tion of righteousness. This last describes just what 
we are to-day ; that divinely ordained form of human 
society in which men meet for these sacred purposes. 
What is most striking is that ive all meet, — all ages, 
conditions, sexes. Herein we see how the Church is 
analogous to the other two great forms of human 
society, the Family and the State. These comprise 
all ages, conditions, and sexes. Herein you see how 
the Church, together with these other two orders, 
is separated and distinguished from all other, the 
transient forms of human society. You go to a 
corporation meeting, there are only men there ; you 
go to a sewing-circle, there are only women there ; 
you go to a school, there are are only children there ; 
you go to a party, there are only invited guests 
there ; you come to what we call the Church, and 
there is everybody here, men and women, old and 
young, parents and children, rich and poor. Parents 
and children, I say, parents with their children ; par- 
ents own pews in which the whole family sit. 

Well, then, you all are the Church, all who meet in 
this godly way, parents and children. The children 
are just as much the Church as the parents. This 
building in which we meet, except by courtesy of 
speech, is not the Church, not the real Church, but 
the people who habitually assemble here for religious 
purposes are the Church. The smallest child here 
is just as much a part of the Church as the gray- 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



157 



headed man. In this view you see at once, not 
only how narrow, but how exceedingly false, is the 
common view of the Church. It calls only a select 
portion of those who habitually assemble for relig- 
ious purposes the Church, and all the others, the 
vast majority, it calls no-church, the world. But 
worse still, in that limited number called the Church 
are no children! Fatal, dreadful, most inhuman 
mistake. Parents belong to it, join it, but do not 
take their children with them ; never, never, in vir- 
tue of their being their children. Lambs do not 
follow the sheep, nor children parents. Parents do 
dress their little children to come to meeting, as we 
say; they bring them into this public meeting-place, 
they seat them orderly in these pews. Why ? Why ? 
In virtue of their being their children. This is the 
governing law. But when they unite with the Church, 
as we say, go forward to the Lord's table, — in a 
word, the moment parents really enter what is called 
the Church, the sacred fold, — they leave their children 
behind; they separate from their children. The 
Church system that everywhere prevails destroys the 
sacred unity of the family, breaks up the God-or- 
dained law, that in religious matters children follow 
their parents, violates the sacred integrity of the 
family. 

We will have no such Church, we will be no 
such Church. We wiU recognize the Divine con- 
dition of things ; we will throw ourselves back on 
the polity of God; we will conform to the unerring 
statutes of reason and revelation. We are a differ- 
ent Church from all that. We, this worshipping 

14 



158 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 

congregation, this regularly constituted assemblyj 
this sober and religious convocation, — ive^ I say, 
these husbands and wives, these brothers and sis- 
ters, these children and children's children, are a 
Church ; we, the whole of us, who meet in Christ's 
name, and no particular few, are the Church. 

Now what about the Communion ? This is what 
I say ; it is for the whole Church, and not for a part 
of it. See how the matter stands. We, the Church 
called Christ Church, have a holy day, called the 
Sabbath, a holy house, called a sanctuary; we have 
holy ordinances, w^orship, instruction, singing, bap- 
tism, and the Communion. Well, all, for all. This 
is our maxim and law; all for all. But shall the 
children partake of the Lord's Supper ? Strange, in 
this nineteenth century of our religion, to hear such 
a question ; stranger, that any reasonable mind can 
doubt on the point! But so it is, the question is 
asked, doubts are felt. I answer, Yes, of course. I 
answer this unhesitatingly, unqualifiedly. Not only 
does my theory lead to such a result, but my convic- 
tions side with it. Nay, I would have the children 
partakers of the holy Communion, if it upset every 
theory I could frame. Feed my sheep, feed my 
lambs; lambs follow the sheep,children their par- 
ents, all for all, there is no difference. As did 
Judah of old, so on this interesting occasion ought 
we all to stand before the Lord, with our wives, 
our little ones, and our children. When Christ says, 
" Do this in remembrance of me," if he means any- 
body, anybody, he means the children. If Christ 
is bread from heaven to any, he is so to the children. 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



159 



If these emblems typify the bread that he is to our 
souls, they typify it to the children. We, the Church, 
give the Sabbath to our children, as to all others, 
and expect them to keep it; we give the Bible to 
our children, and expect them to revere it ; we give 
public w^orship to them, and expect them to engage 
in it; so we must give the Lord's Supper to our 
children, or we are recreant to every principle of 
duty, reason, and religion. 

I know we may imagine our children are not 
prepared for the communion. And why? Solely, 
my friends, because we have not prepared them, by 
training them up to it, and in it. L your minister, 
am to blame in this ; ye parents are to blame ; an 
erroneous sentiment is everywhere to blame. Sup- 
pose you had never given your children the Sabbath 
until by some special change they were prepared 
for it, and had brought them up outside of the Sab- 
bath, as we have educated them outside of the 
Communion. Why, they never would be prepared 
for it. So of the Bible, so of prayer, so of the sun- 
light, so of roses. The true and only way to pre- 
pare children for the greatest, holiest, best things of 
experience or of observation, of this world or an- 
other, is to bring them up in those things. 

But the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is more 
holy than these other things. I deny that it is one 
whit more holy than the Sabbath, or the Bible, or 
prayer. But granting that it were ; let us suppose, 
for argument's sake, it were much more holy, a hun- 
dred times more holy, the holiest thing in the uni- 
verse. Blessed be God ! that is the very thing I want 



160 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



the children to have, that is just what I would give 
to the children, I was going to say, sooner than to 
anybody else. Show me what is most holy, most 
pure, most heavenly, and I will show you w^hat 
children most need. He was blessed who gave a 
cup of cold water in Christ's name to the little one. 
Doubly blessed he v/ho shall give the cup symbolical 
of the very life of Jesus to the little ones. Children 
receive truth through pictures more than adults. 
These emblems are a species of pictures perhaps of 
greater utility to the children than to their parents. 
Did not Christ live and die for children ? and shall 
we, dare we, refuse to them that in which his living 
and dying are shown forth ? 

In Washington, they are erecting a monument to 
the memory of that great name. If you were in 
Washington with your family, you would account 
it a sin to refuse to take your children with you to 
see that monument. If there were a class of people 
there w^ho taught that children and others must first 
meet with a change before they could be deemed 
patriots, and permitted to see the monument, you 
would exclaim, with astonishment. Why, let your 
children behold the monument, that they may be- 
com.e patriots. In this sacrament Christ has erected 
a kind of monument of himself. It is a vety ancient 
monument, one of rare grace and finish, and covered 
with touching images and inscriptions. And he 
says. Visit it, behold it, in remembrance of me. Will 
you not take your children with you? Of course 
you will. If any say. The children must first meet 
w^ith a change, must first become Christians, before 



CHILDREN 



TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



161 



they can behold the monument of Christ; you will 
reply, We bring them to the monument that they 
may be Christians, that Christianism may be deep- 
ened in their hearts. The State does well to have 
its monuments, the Church does well to have its 
monuments. But, indeed, how much better the 
State does by its children than the Church has ever 
done ! 

Why did Christ die ? To save men, we say. And 
to save children ? Then, of course, children should 
commemorate his death. But more particularly, the 
immediate object of his death was to extend the 
covenant blessings of God to the whole human race, 
and to the children, of course. Therefore should the 
children commemorate his death. Or thus, Christ 
died a sacrifice to his grand, divine purpose of good 
to man. His whole life was devoted to such a pur- 
pose, and in his death it was consumiriated. In 
all this, and in all that pertains to it, children are 
equally interested with others. Shall we, dare we, 
in the Sunday school, teach the affecting story 
of the great Redeemer's love and toils and agony, 
and deny to them the memorials of those things ? 
God forbid! 

If, as some imagine, the Lord's Supper be a saving 
ordinance, if it peculiarly gathers within itself the life 
of Christ, if his spirit there gushes and flows and per- 
vades all who partake of it, then by all means let the 
children come. If it be a sacred scene, a sweet spot, 
a gracious, comforting, sustaining, sanctifying rite, 
then by all means bring the children to it. If Christ 
be nearer his people there than elsewhere, if his 

14^ 



162 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



voice be heard there, his presence felt, if his bleed- 
ing side be open there, or his benignant countenance 
appear there, as nowhere else, then, O, then let the 
children be brought nigh I 

It was a most searching, truthful, and beautiful idea 
of the old father, Irenaeus, that Christ passed through 
all ages of man that he might save all by himself, in- 
fants and little ones, and youths and persons ad- 
vanced in years. We hardly realize that Christ was 
once a little child like these children, a good little 
child, and that these are to become good by him. 
He is a child for the children, as well as a man for 
the men. And therefore should the children keep all 
the tender, affecting memorials of himself. " He was 
made an infant for infants, that he might sanctify 
infants ; and for little ones he was made a little one, 
to sanctify them of that age also." The case is this. 
We and our children are a church, " we and our pos- 
terity," it matters not how far the succession de- 
scends ; it is one church still, the Church of God and 
Christ. As a church, we have a church-house, or 
meeting-house, church days or meeting days, a 
church pastor, church service, church rites ; and all 
for all ; and the children are, by birth, inalienably, 
incontestably, and for ever involved in the whole 
concern, — endowed with its honors, holden to its 
responsibilities, inheritors of its past, testators of its 
future. 

Why should the children partake of the Lord's 
Supper ? Why anybody ? " To profess religion ? " 
A foolish reason. But suppose it a good one, the 
children ought to profess religion as well as others. 



CHILDREN TO BE COM?lUx\ICANTS. 



163 



" That people may be in covenant one with another, 
to watch over one another, and offer a more united 
front to the powers of evil ? " The very place of all 
others for the children to be. Wliy partake of the 
Lord's Supper, do you ask ? Why do anything in 
a church way ? The Lord's Supper is not the only 
church instrumentality. The Sabbath and the Bible 
are of the same stamp. And the question is an- 
swered when we reply to the general question, What 
is the use of the Sabbath, or the Bible, or public 
worship, or any service of the Church ? The reply, 
of course, is, to make people good, to train them 
up Christians, to regenerate the soul. The Lord's 
Supper is but one branch of this great spiritual 
ministration. 

" Children cannot understand the Lord's Supper." 
I venture to assert, if we bring up our children prop- 
erly, there is no religious duty, no custom, no truth, 
children can so easily understand as this. I mean 
this : I think they can understand it better than they 
can understand the Old Testament Scriptures, or 
prayer, or coming to the house of God ; as well as 
they can understand benevolence, or forbearance, or 
love. If at this moment they do not understand it, 
it is because we have wholly failed to bring them up 
to it. Our children would be as orderly and rever- 
ential in this service as in prayer, or preaching, or 
singing, if we parents had only trained ourselves and 
them to it. 

The doctrine of total depravity and original sin 
shoved the Church from its true basis, and broke the 
natural connection between believing parents and 



164 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 

their children. Unitarianism denies that dogma, 
and restores the Church to its true basis. It unites 
parents and children in the Church. It makes the 
Church consist of parents with their children. It 
gives back to the Church and the fold, and the arms 
of Jesus, the children that have been so long sun- 
dered from him. Such are we before God to- 
day ; such are we, elders, youths, children ; such are 
w^e, or we are nothing, a mere collection of heathen 
and publicans. 

Baptism does not admit ox initiate into the Church. 
This was the fatal postulate of the theory of deprav- 
ity, and is a mere device to save the Church from the 
pit she had digged for herself. It is here where Ro- 
manism and Episcopacy and the Baptists all agree. 
They all alike say to the generations of children as 
they are born into the Christian community, You 
cannot enter the Church except you be baptized. 
Indeed, Trinitarianism almost universally takes this 
ground. Romanism unequivocally teaches, in its 
Catechism of the Council of Trent, " Unless infants 
are baptized, be their parents Christians or infidels, 
they are born to eternal misery and everlasting perdi- 
tion." * In other words, without baptism, the children 
even of the Church, of pious parents, cannot be admit- 
ted into the Church, into the estate and fellowship of 
their parents, into the communion of saints, or into 
the body of which Christ is the head. Episcopacy 
teaches the same thing. It teaches that baptism is 
necessary to salvation. I have before me a sermon 



* Miller's Design of the Church," p. 120. 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



165 



by the Rev. Mr. Spencer, an Episcopal clergyman of 
New York, urging this very point. He says, all 
mankind are born to condemnation ; that, in their 
natural state, children " are left to the uncovenanted 
mercies of God." To the unbaptized he addresses 
these words : " You have no claim to the mercy of 
God ; you have never been made Christians ; you 
can never be entitled to this name, or to the privileges 
of Christ's Church. Baptism is necessary to the sal- 
vation of every one that can obtain it ; it is the 
only way in which we can become Christians, the 
only way in which we can enter the Church of God." 
This is the way Episcopacy addresses the children 
of its own Church ; in this way it shows its utter 
ignorance of what Rev. Nehemiah Adams, of Bos- 
ton, calls " a fundamental principle of God's moral 
government of the universe." 

What then to us is Baptism? I reply, in the 
language of the Cambridge Platform, " Baptism 
presupposeth a Church estate, as circumcision in the 
Old Testament, which gave no being to the Church, 
the Church being before it, and in the wilderness 
without it. Seals presuppose a covenant already 
in being." Children get into the Church just as 
they get into the Family, or the State, or the Sab- 
bath, or into the whole course and current of institu- 
tions and influences that surround them, simply by 
being born there. And thus being in the Church, 
along with their parents, being in the divine covenant 
of God, baptism is the recognition of their birthright, 
the seal of the covenant of membership; it is an 
emblem of the Holy Ghost and fire, the purifying 



166 CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



holy spirit in which Christ baptizes his people. It 
is an outward act whereby parents in the Church, on 
their part, in the presence of the great cloud of wit- 
nesses, solemnly dedicate their children to God and 
Christ and the Church, to the Christian life and the 
Christian destiny, and publicly confess the duty of 
Christian nurture and admonition. 

The children being in the Church, indigenous to 
it, to the manner born, having the Church seal thus 
impressed upon them, what then? All that the 
Church is accrues to the children. They are for- 
evermore integrant parts of it, they are heirs of God 
and fellow-citizens of the household of faith. All 
that has been regarded in church things as most in- 
ternal and secret, most solemn and profound, most 
holy and blessed, is made over to them. But more 
than this. AVe have now got the whole congre- 
gation, the constituent members of the parish, the 
varied mass that come up hither on the Lord's day, 
in a position where, as a Christian pastor, we can 
properly deal with them. We see at once how to 
preach to them, how to teach them, how the whole 
series of our service, our praying, our singing, our 
baptism, our communion, adapts itself to them. 

Suppose we consider the Church as a school, and 
Christ the great teacher, and the people as disci- 
ples, learners, scholars. The little children are all 
scholars too, fellow-pupils with their parents, all 
sitters at the feet of Jesus, fellow-listeners to divine 
instructions, fellow-disciples of divine truth. We 
shall have to teach the very small children, the 
youngest church-members, the a b c of Christian- 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



167 



ity. Beautiful, delightful employment I And here 
at once we see the significancy and the force of the 
Sunday school. From Sunday to Sunday, accord- 
ing to what was enjoined under the old covenant, 
we will gather the people, the whole Church, here 
together, men and women and children, and the 
stranger that is within our gate, that we may hear 
and learn and fear the Lord our God, and observe 
to do all the words of his law, and that our children, 
which have not known any things may hear and learn 
to fear the Lord our God as long as we live in the 
land. If we liken the Church to a commonwealth, 
and it is so likened in Scripture, we see how we all, 
parents and children, stand related to it. The chil- 
dren are born into it, they are fellow-citizens with 
their parents in a divine community, a common law 
governs all, a common protection is over all. Our 
children become an heritage of the Lord, and the 
fruit of the womb is his reward. This Christ Church 
is a little commonwealth, and other local churches 
become little commonwealths, and these shall spread 
into one greater commonwealth ; where evermore 
shall reign Liberty, Holiness, Love, where suffrage 
shall be free, independency observed, and office ac- 
cessible to all. As the fathers are gathered to the 
dust, the children shall rise to their places. Where 
duty leads or dangers threaten, we shall offer the 
energy of a united people to whatever we may be 
called, and we shall be blessed in the land which the 
Lord our God giveth us. 

One is not necessarily saved by being in the 
Church." No, indeed. But we are in the Church 



168 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



that we may be saved. This is a cardinal point, a 
most interesting feature of the case. The children 
are in the Church, of it, church-members, and this, 
so to say, is but the beginning of their salvation ; 
they are now to grow up Christians, to be trained 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. They 
are born, as we say, on Church soil, — little sprouts 
just springing out of the ground. They must be 
cultivated, watered, dressed, weeded, fertilized. The 
great work of life is just begun at childhood ; we are 
to advance to the stature of perfect men in Christ 
Jesus. Regeneration, or the birth of the spirit, the 
unfolding of our religious natures, the acquisition of 
highest truth, the feeding on celestial food, — all this 
is to go on in the Church, and not out of it. 

The common idea is, after persons are regener- 
ated, sanctified, saved, then they may enter the 
Church ; and this is predicable only of adult persons. 
Our idea is that the Church incloses, comprehends, 
all ages, just as the State does ; that it not only takes 
the lambs in its arms, but gently leads those that are 
mth young ; that infancy is nourished, as it were, at 
the bosom of the Church ; that childhood is led by 
its maternal hand ; that all our years, from the cra- 
dle to the grave, imbibe its spirit and reflect its 
holiness ; and especially and imperatively, that the 
very susceptible and critical period of youth is 
subject to its holiest influences, accepts its highest 
sanctions, feels its restraints, and is inspired by its 
wisdom. 

Now, viewing my flock as one, parents and chil- 
dren, in the same covenant of a common faith, unit- 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 169 

ed in the same responsibility and hope, what, I ask 
again, about the children and the Lord's Supper, — 
that tender point? and what about it, granting this 
ordinance is really more sacred than anything else? 
During the last month we have had common Sab- 
baths, and now comes what some are pleased to con- 
sider more holy, a Communion Sabbath. During 
this past time, I as a Shepherd have been leading 
you, my flock, sheep and lambs, over common ground. 
In the great pasture, on the second Sabbath I took 
you here; on the third, there; to such spots as I 
could. As I piped, the lambs came running along 
behind their parents ; and I gave you all as good 
food as I could. But Communion Sabbath comes, 
a more holy time, if you will have it so ; in other 
words, to-day I your shepherd espy in the distance 
a more attractive spot, of more grateful shade, more 
delectable herbage, clearer streams, more sunny, more 
Arcadian. I sound my pipe, and start for that direc- 
tion. The sheep follow me, but the lambs must not 
go ! Or thus : to-day is our festival day, when we 
peculiarly commemorate Christ, when in silence and 
meditation we get near to one another and the Lord, 
when we enter the holy of holies, where God mani- 
fests himself peculiarly to his people, when w^e stand 
where the horizon of spiritual intelligence stretches 
around us, and w^e come into the infinite circle of the 
good and the pure. These parents may keep holy 
time with us, but the children must not ! Or thus : 
we go to-day to the scene of the Last Supper, we 
pass over the brook Kidron, to the garden and be- 
neath the shade of the olive-trees ; we witness that 

15 



170 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



perilous struggle of all that was human in our Sav- 
iour with all that was divine in duty ; we go to 
Calvary and look on while this great Martyr of the 
ages breathes out his soul ; we linger pensive and si- 
lent about the sepulchre ; we share with Mary and 
Peter the transports of the resurrection ; we gaze as 
that image of heavenly beauty rises into the heav- 
ens ; — and may not the children go with us? 

The comprehension of children in this rite is not 
wholly a strange thing. The Passover was the great 
covenant feast of the Mosaic religion, and Jewish 
parents were wont to distribute the bread and the 
wine to their children, with thanksgiving to Almighty 
God. So the Lord's Supper is the covenant feast 
of the Christian religion, and the early Christians 
were wont in their own houses to give the bread and 
wine to their children. This is a well-known histor- 
ical fact. And when we read, still earlier, of the 
disciples breaking bread from house to house, it ad- 
mits of no manner of doubt to my mind, that their 
children partook with them. For some centuries it 
was customary in many churches to comprise chil- 
dren in this ordinance. Heathen parents used to 
take their infants in their arms w~hen they went to 
sacrifice at the altar, and this seems to have been 
urged as a motive for Christian parents to do the 
same by theirs.* The Greek Church to this day 
universally communicates children. Tasso, the Ital- 
ian poet, relates that he was scarcely nine years old 
when he first partook of the Lord's Supper. "With- 



Bingham's Ant. 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



171 



out fully understanding the mystery, he yet partici- 
pated with the deepest devotion and joy. Long 
years afterwards," he says, " he could not forget the 
sensations with which he received the symbols of his 
Saviour into that earthly body of his, a dwelling- 
place yet uncontaminated, simple, and pure.'' * Need 
I repeat that the Jews and Gentile nations univer- 
sally, so far as I know", join their children with them 
in their most sacred rites. We see, then, how the so- 
called Church almost everywhere has departed from 
the primitive and apostolic antecedents, and how 
especially it has forgotten that fundamental law im- 
pressed by God on human nature, and written in all 
human history, whereby in religious matters the 
family is a unit, and children are in covenant with 
their parents. 

I will ask you, mother, however you may reason 
on this subject, however conventional prejudices 
may arise in your heart at the thought of what we 
say, as you to-day think of your boy far off on 
the restless, treacherous ocean, or away in some 
other place, amid strangers and perplexities and 
profaneness, seeking respite from toil, yet finding 
more onerous struggle with temptations that environ 
him, in some city, perhaps, where even the multitude 
creates an uneasy sense of solitude, and the rest of 
the Sabbath often gives rein to every baser passion, 
— I will ask you, fond mother, if you would not take 
greater satisfaction to-day, immeasurably greater, if 
you could think that you had not only prayed for 



^ Life, Vol. 1. p. 61. 



172 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



your child, and brought him to the house of God, 
and had him instructed in the Sabbath School, but 
also from his earliest years had likewise taken him 
to the communion-table with you, had made him 
feel that he was coequal and absolute part and par- 
cel of the Church with you. had identified his grow- 
ing years with all the purposes and all the rites of 
Christianity, and enrolled, I will not say his name, 
but his thoughts, his imagination, his destiny, in that 
book where the whole fraternity of the good in heav- 
en and earth are recorded ? And, my friends, when 
our children die, and we so easily, and so naturally, 
so irresistibly, assign them their place in the Church 
above, will we ever again be negligent, or hesitat- 
ing, or sceptical, in bringing them into the Church 
below? Have I, your minister, been to blame in 
this matter, God forgive me, and forbid that I should 
ever be so again! As things now are, our young 
people have no sense, no deep, vital sense, of Chris- 
tian responsibility. And I maintain, that, however 
we may try to give them a Christian education, and 
awe them with Christian admonitions, and store 
them with Christian advice, so long as we keep them 
out of the Christian Church they never will have 
this sense ; and for the reason that this whole thing 
of Christian responsibility centres within the Church, 
and is, so to say, monopolized by it. "We are so 
trained as to feel that this solemn burden is taken 
up, and its whole weight borne, by those who join 
the Church. If then we would that our young men 
and women possess this sense, in its fulness and en- 
tireness, a thing so essential to their happiness, their 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 173 

usefulness, their moral perfection and complete sal- 
vation, they must be in the Church. In England, 
the Rev. Mr. Armstrong, a Unitarian clergyman, in 
a recent pastoral letter, adverting to the fact of the 
general recklessness of youth, says they must come 
under a higher sense of responsibility. To this 
end, he proposes what I have just intimated, they 
must be in the Church. 

Awhile since I preached a discourse to this effect, 
that duty was irrespective of profession, — that a 
man was bound to be religious whether he had 
made a profession or no. This was addressed to 
that condition of things in which we find all our 
parishes, a few professors and a mass of non-profes- 
sors. As the term is used, and the affair is managed, 
I think very little of what is called making a pro- 
fession of religion. I have sometimes thought I 
would none of it. The question is not whether we 
will make a profession of religion, but whether we 
will be religious and Christian, and especially train 
up our children to be religious and Christian. Nor 
is it now the question how the multitude of us will 
act in view gf that little collection called the Church, 
but whether we all, parents and children, enter that 
sphere and occupy that post at once of obligation 
and sustentation, of duty and of hope, — the Church ? 
Question ? No, it is no question. I have never 
preached to you but as one, I have never enforced 
duty upon you but as one, I have practically ignored 
the pale by wliich a few may be surrounded. What 
I now do is to take that pale and surround the 
whole of you with it. And this brings me round 
15-^ 



174 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



to the point where I have ever stood, but now more 
perfectly defined, that of preaching duty and obliga- 
tion to you as all alike church-membe^'s ; that is, all 
occupying before God the highest position of respon- 
sibility. If any do not like such preaching and such 
a position, all I can say is, I do not see how, since 
God has raised such a standard for us in his word 
and in our own consciousness, I can lower it for any 
man. 

Some will say they wish their children to grow 
up free, perfectly free. So do I, in any just sense 
of the word. But I take it you do not wish them to 
grow up free to be atheists, to be profane, to sin, — 
free from the highest Christian obligations. If you 
do, you would of course not bring them here. You 
wish them, I shall presume, to grow up Christians, 
rooted in Christian principles, and determined to a 
Christian life, to be such freemen as the truth makes 
free. You wish them free from sin, and free to do 
right, wherever they go. To this end, as one gracious 
means of good, I insist this whole thing of what we 
call the Church, all that it is and possesses and 
promises, its sanctions and solemnities, its worship, 
instruction, and communion, must be given to them, 
must inclose them, fold them as an atmosphere, 
guard them as a divinity? 

" Man is evermore liable to fall, young men are 
liable to go astray." I know this, I know it, and 
therefore all the more would I secure their uprightness 
and shield their steps by every possible instrumen- 
tality. Some may imagine their children will not 
grow up Christians, do the best they can for them. 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 175 

Possibly. But the promise is, " Train up a child in 
the way he should go, and when he is old he will 
not depart from it." And I am sure that, so long as 
we keep our children out of the position of highest 
responsibility, a responsibility graduated according 
to capacity in every case, call it Church or what you 
will, so long will they not be what we wish them to 
be. Suppose you wish your child to learn at school, 
to be a scholar, and after a sort send him to school, 
yet refuse to let him take on himself the respon- 
sibility of the school, or to put him in the position 
of a scholar ; you say to the teacher, I wish my boy 
to come in here occasionally, I wish him to hear what 
you have to say, but I do not wish you to regard 
him as of the school, as a scholar, nor to lay any 
rules upon him, or enforce any lessons. Just so long, 
your child never will be a scholar. Now if there be 
in this building, in this assembly, in this parish, in 
these gatherings together, a position of high Chris- 
tian responsibility, which our children cannot reach, 
to which we refuse to take them, and unto which 
we dare not commit them, however we may bring 
them here from Sunday to Sunday, just to look 
about, or hear what they please to hear and feel 
what they please to feel, just so long there is a 
moral certainty they will not grow up Christians. 
Home influences, and various causes cooperating 
with the nature that is in them, may make them 
Christians. But bringing them to meeting in this 
way never will. 

Will it be said, we may reach the position of 
highest moral and spiritual responsibility out of the 



176 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS. 



Church ? I say, when you have reached that point, 
you have reached the true Church point, you are 
the Church. Let us suppose that in the Old South 
Church, Boston, the large mass now out of the 
Church should begin to assume the position of 
highest Christian responsibility, should endeavor 
among themselves to grow up Christians, and do 
Christian deeds, and keep holy time, and pray, and 
have the Lord's Supper and baptism among them- 
selves ; why, they instantly become a church. That 
is the fact about it. What I teach is, that inas- 
much as the word Church is only a convenient term 
for expressing the organization of the religious or 
Christian element, or since religious society merely 
defines the word Church, the highest responsibilities 
commence at the moment of initiating such an or- 
ganization, and one who enters a truly religious 
society, duly constituted, enters the Church. Or, in 
other words, that Church, instead of being confined 
to a few, covers all that religious society covers, all 
that flock covers, or all that worshipping congre- 
gation covers, and especially that it includes the 
children. 

In bringing what I have to say to a close, let me 
go back to the children, and ask what, to take it for 
all in all, is the most critical period of human life? 
I answer, it is the period of the development of the 
passions, between- the age of twelve and eighteen. 
This I take to be, on the whole, the most susceptible 
period for good or evil we pass through. Now I 
wish to ask. Where shall our youths be at this pe- 
riod, in the Church or out of it ? I ask parents, I ask 



CHILDREN TO BE COMMUNICANTS 



177 



ministers of parishes everywhere, I ask the philan- 
thropist and the legislator, I ask people of all doctrines 
and all forms, Where shall om' youths be at this peri- 
od, in the Church or out of it ? They must be in one 
position or the other. As things are, there is no mid- 
dle ground. I fancy I hear but one answer. They 
ought to be in the Church. AYhat is most sacred 
should impress them, what is most benign should 
embrace them, what is most edifying should mould 
them, what tends in the highest degree to adorn 
their natures, correct their selfishness, and sanctify 
their being, should be theirs. Well, then, to be in 
the Church during that time, they must be there 
before they are twelve years old. And now I ask 
you if you dare to trust so amazing a result to the 
hazards of special conversion, or the contingencies 
of a revival. For one, I dare not. There is no al- 
ternative, then, recognizing, as we do, the great fact 
of birth-connection with the Church, but for us to 
train our children up at once in the Church for the 
Church, in the Church for the world, in the Church 
below for the Church above. 



SERMON X. 



EDUCATION, COXSIDERED AS THE GREAT CHRIS- 
TIAN LAW. 

BRING- UP YOUR CHILDREN IN THE NURTURE AND ADMONITION 

OF THE LORD. — Ephesians vi. 4. 

^E/crpecj^ere avra ev TraiSeca kol vovdea-la Kvplov, 
" Nourish them in the discipline and instruction 
of the Lord " ; the schooling and remembrance 
of Jesus ; the knowledge, science, instruction, and 
memory of Jesus. Bring up your children in the 
thorough education of the Lord Jesus. Give them 
a Christian education, educate them into Christ. 

Let us place at one end of the scale Peter, the 
wild boy. He was found in a piece of woods in 
Germany. When first discovered, he was walking on 
his hands and feet, climbing up trees like a squiiTcl, 
and feeding on grass and moss. When brought to 
the presence of George the First, who was at dinner, 
he was offered food from the table, but w^ould eat 
nothing. Raw meat he devoured with a relish. 
He was unable to speak, and no one could tell or 
learn how he came to be abandoned. Escaping 
from those who had charge of him, he fled again to 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 179 



the woods, and such was his agility and strength it 
was impossible to retake him, except by sawing 
down the tree into which he ran. In about a year 
he was taught to abandon the use of his hands in 
walking, and to move about in an erect posture. No 
inducements could persuade him to lie in a bed, 
and he would only sleep in a corner of the room. 
He was placed under the tuition of a celebrated 
physician of that day. Dr. Arbuthnot, in the hope 
that after a time he would be enabled to express him- 
self in words. But all efforts to this end were un- 
availing; he could never be taught to speak. He 
expressed pleasure by neighing like a horse, and 
imitating other animal sounds. Unable to be dis- 
ciplined to the usages of civilized society, he was 
placed in charge of a farmer, who put him to school, 
but without visible improvement. He frequently ran 
away, and seemed to delight to subsist on herbage, 
leaves, and tender roots, and to climb into trees. 
He lived to the age of seventy-three. His face was 
not ugly or disagreeable, and he had a look that 
might have been called sensible and sagacious for 
a savage. He was never mischievous, but had a 
gentleness of manner. He was extremely good- 
tempered, except in cold and gloomy weather. His 
passions seem not to have been developed. In his 
first years, as we may suppose, he never had occa- 
sion to get angry with any one. In after life he was 
not easily provoked, he did no violence, except at 
first to tear the bed-clothes that were irksome to 
him. 

At the other end of the scale we will place 



180 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

Sir Isaac Newton ; the discoverer of the nature of 
fluxions, of the composition of light, and of the law 
of gravitation ; the distinguished professor and able 
Master of the Mint; the man who, " with a compre- 
hension which embraced at one view the meaning of 
every subject to which he directed his attention, and 
overleaped as trifling all the difficulties that had 
arrested the progress of other philosophers, was thus 
able to shed a lustre on the age in which he lived, 
and the country which gave him birth, and to in- 
troduce such astonishing improvements, and make 
such stupendous discoveries in science, as would 
each of them individually hav^ bestowed immor- 
tality." 

"What was the cause of the difference between these 
two men ? I answer, education. And solely that. 
If we examine the case in all its parts, and explore 
the secret springs, we shall conclude that the essen- 
tial and fundamental cause of difference was simply 
education. Of course I do not employ the term ed- 
ucation in precisely the way we are wont to use it, 
as implying certain specific forms and modes of 
instruction. We speak of college education, and 
common-school education, and the cause of educa- 
tion, but we always use the word relatively, not as 
distinguished from absolutely no education, but from 
a low or poorer sort of education. Everybody in 
civil society is to a certain extent educated. There 
is a civilized and an uncivilized education. The 
New-Zealander educates his child not less than the 
Englishman. Perhaps a better word than educatio7i is 
culture. Herein are also suggested social influences. 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 181 

I mean by it all those agencies and means where- 
by the faculties are developed, the mind informed, and 
the character moulded. I say, then, the whole differ- 
ence between the wild boy and Sir Isaac Newton 
was education. Of course the latter may have pos- 
sessed stronger natural mental powers, he may have 
had an innate mathematical tendency. On the other 
hand, Peter may have been endowed with more vivid 
imaginative powers, and deeper affections. 

If seen side by side, infants of a week old, you 
would have discerned no difference between them. 
Their complexion, their shape, their crying, are all 
alike, their wants are alike ; the same helplessness, 
the same need of tender care, marks the condition 
of them both. At a month's age, they would both 
smile to you in the same way, fling out their tiny 
arms in similar life, and go quietly to sleep by simi- 
lar rocking. But Peter is left in the forest, and 
abandoned to the maternal instinct of a brute beast. 
Isaac is trained up in his father's house. " His 
mother bestows a particular care on his education." 
At twelve he goes to a grammar school, at eighteen 
to college. When under the instruction of the fa- 
mous Isaac Barrow, he begins to apply himself to 
mathematics. In infancy, withal, he is baptized or 
solemnly consecrated to the religion of his country 
and his God, and at an early age he became a com- 
municant in the Church of England. We see in 
the one case education, or culture, beginning its 
work; in the other, an entire neglect of everything 
of the sort. 

Here, then, are two impressible human natures, the 

16 



182 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 



one the fortunate subject of impressing agencies, the 
other a derelict, and absolutely without them. Both 
have religious, moral, and intellectual faculties. In 
Isaac these are exercised, in Peter left dormant. 
Isaac's spirit is born, he undergoes regeneration. 
Peter's remains as it was in his mother's womb. 

Let us notice the progress of events a little more 
in detail. Peter, we are told, never learned to speak. 
Isaac soon spoke his mother tongue. Peter was 
taught no language, Greek or Hebrew, English or 
Indian. This faculty of speech, language, the use 
of language, is purely a thing of education. Peter 
could only utter sounds like those of a wild animal, 
as Mademoiselle Leblanc imitated the various cries 
of birds. Peter had a tongue, and throat, and the 
natural functions of speech, only there was no moth- 
er to teach his infant lips to try their powers. 

We are all educated into language. This gift of 
speech is one of the most wonderful with which the 
Creator has endowed us. Yet it must be educated, 
drawn out. If left to itself, absolutely, it would never 
act. Children brought up on a solitary island by a 
dumb nurse, and other similar instances which are 
recorded, are proof of this. There are some who 
speak Chinese, there are others who speak Italian ; 
with certain people the entire language is Ger- 
man, in other parts of the earth French prevails. 
How is this ? People are so educated. There is 
no other explanation. The reason why you and I 
speak English, while we cannot understand a sylla- 
ble of Arabic, is, that we have been educated into the 
English language, and not into the Arabic. 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 183 

Now philosophers say, we think in words. I be- 
lieve this is so. If you watch your own thoughts, I 
believe you will find them clothed in words. "We 
Americans think in English words. A Chinese 
thinks in Chinese words. The greater our vocabu- 
lary, the greater is our copiousness of thought. A 
child never begins to think very intelligibly until it 
begins to talk. You cannot very well think, " Our 
Father which art in heaven," until you can say the 
words, " Our Father which art in heaven." Well, 
Peter had no words, and how could he exercise 
thought ? He never heard the words, father, mother, 
God, Christ, truth, beauty, love, and how could he 
think those thoughts ? And if he could not think 
those thoughts, how could his mind or character ma- 
ture ? Sir Isaac's mother taught him all those words, 
led his infantile organs along until they could dis- 
tinctly utter them, and she explained the ideas that 
belonged to those words, and so educated her child 
into the words and into the thoughts of father, 
mother, God, Christ, truth, love, and beauty. 

This fact of having the English language, and of 
having the ideas with which the English language is 
full, is purely the result of education. And it is a 
process, for the most part, that begins in infancy. 
Sir Isaac vv^ent on being educated more and more. 
He exercised his faculties, he acquired knowledge, a 
new intellectual consciousness was awakened within 
him ; his soul was being born day by day. Peter 
had nobody to lead him along ; as I said, he could 
only follow the beasts with whom he herded. He 
climbed trees, as they did, and walked on all fours, 
and dug roots, and slept on the grass. 



184 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

Did not God love this poor wild boy ? He did. 
But God has so constituted things, has made human 
beings so dependent one on another, has so bound the 
child to its mother, that if, in our tender years, we be 
cast off, there is no hope for us. Was Peter's nature 
depraved? Not in the least. He was simply neg- 
lected. He had powers in him that might have been 
cultivated into what we call intelligence and reason, 
into religion and worship, into habits of economy or 
efforts of art, but these powers were left dormant. 

An infant is not developed, but its nature is such 
that, if left like a plant in the shade, its true charac- 
ter will never appear. This is a law of things, an 
eternal law, an inexorable law that circumscribes us. 
Here is a kernel of corn ; it is sound and good ; but 
if I never plant it, it will never grow. If I throw it 
into a cold, dark, damp place, it will moulder and 
decay. If I plant it in a sterile soil, it will grow but 
poorly. If I plant it in good ground, and do not 
cultivate it, its produce there will be small. 

Peter was a kernel of corn, as it were, cast aside 
to moulder and die. Sir Isaac Newton was a simi- 
lar grain, planted in good ground, and thoroughly 
cultivated. 

No, Peter was not depraved. Even the beasts 
that were his companions had not taught him malev- 
olence or trained him to cruelty. He was quite mild 
and inoffensive. Peter had the organs of speech, 
but because they were not cultivated in infancy, he 
could never learn to speak. This is a peculiar law 
of the human system. The organs seem to become 
indurated, if not used ; their elasticity is lost, and 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 185 



even their sensibility perishes. He had the power 
of reading; but from the same cause, though he 
was sent to school, he could never learn to read. 
He had the organ of reverence, which, cultivated, 
would have made him a religious man, but, unculti- 
vated, left him as a dumb beast. He had the ca- 
pacity for filial love, but, from the same cause, he 
seemed to have no idea of father or mother, and not 
one sentiment proper to childhood. 

Newton walked in paths of philosophy, while Pe- 
ter burrowed, in thickets in summer and in the chim- 
ney-corner in winter. Newton's mind comprehended 
" satellites, planets, and suns hanging on their centres 
in the arched void of heaven, and systems connected 
to each other by the revolution of comets, all floating 
in the boundless inane " ; while Peter's mind was as 
a stagnant pool cooped in the recesses of his heavy 
frame. Newton bowed in awful reverence to the 
God of the universe ; Peter knew no superior but the 
rude farmer in whose custody he was placed. New- 
ton passed away shedding a blaze of light upon the 
globe he inhabited ; Peter died an object of curios- 
ity, as a monster of nature. All this difference, I re- 
peat, was ovang to education or culture. This is 
what education does. 

By education, I of course refer not merely to what 
the school-teacher may impart by the drill of lessons, 
but to that almost endless combination of influences 
which touch and affect the human mind in the civil- 
ized state. It includes not merely what was done 
for Newton, but what he did for himself ; not only 
opportunities, but the diligent use of them. The 

16* 



186 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAAV. 

powers are acted upon, indeed, but they are also self- 
acting. But this is to be observed, — unless we are 
the passive subjects of exterior culture in our first 
years, we are not able to become self-culturists in 
after-time, looking, I mean, at humanity in the ex- 
treme instance of this forest child. 

At opposite ends of the scale, then, we see Peter 
the wild boy, and Sir Isaac Newton the philosopher, 
and this contrast and wide separation are owing to 
education. This might have made Peter the philos- 
opher, and the want of it degraded Newton into the 
wild boy. Between these two range the great ma- 
jority of human beings, whose places are graduated 
according to their culture, or education. 

Our conclusion is, that the great law of life, of 
progressive, growing life, of life considered as made 
up of what we do and what we are, is education. 

Let me take another instance ; not of two indi- 
viduals, but of one individual in two states, or at one 
end of the scale at one time, and at the other at 
another. It shall be Laura Bridgman. You know 
about her, and I need not amplify her history. She 
was a sprightly infant with blue eyes, but disease, in 
the space of two years, made her blind, deaf, dumb, 
and with only a slight consciousness of smell or 
taste ; her faculties, her speech, her reason, her affec- 
tions, her industry, her progress, became thus, as it 
were, sealed up for ever. Yet she was not, like the 
wild boy, cast off from human society, and reduced 
to the lone pupilage of beasts and woods. She had 
a home, and a mother that loved her ; and she had 
one sense left, that of touch, and through it she re- 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 187 

ceived impressions and ideas, and by this her mind 
was in a slight degree affected. In other words, she 
received a little education. 

But Dr. Howe took her in charge, and contrived 
ways for reaching her faculties more nearly and inti- 
mately. He taught her a rude kind of language ; 
he taught her to read and write, and knit and sew. 
" So strong,^' says Dr. Howe, " seems to be her natu- 
ral tendency to put on the garb of words, that Laura 
often soliloquizes in her finger language. She has 
great thirst for knowledge, a quick perception of the 
relation of things. In her moral character it is beau- 
tiful to observe her continual gladness, her keen en- 
joyment of existence, her expansive love, her sympa- 
thy with suffering, her conscientiousness, thankful- 
ness, and hopefulness. She keeps a diary, and she 
makes twine bags. Her countenance has improved, 
and beams with intelligence." From a condition 
bordering upon idiocy, she becomes an intelligent 
woman ; from staring vacancy, her face grows radi- 
ant with expression. 

This, too, is a result of education. Educaiion 
carries this unfortunate person from one end of the 
scale to the other. By a fixed law, certain things 
acting upon the mind quicken and develop it. By 
the same law, the mind thus brought into activity 
goes on to make greater progress. 

In passing, let us notice this striking fact. Re- 
garding those children of the wilds, lost or deserted 
human offspring, foundlings of nature, the foster-sons 
of wolves and bears, it is found that, unless the work 
of education begins before the age of puberty, it can- 



188 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

not be prosecuted at all ; or if it is, the success is 
very trifling. The faculties become too deadened to 
be resuscitated by human means. Victor, the sav- 
age of Avignon, could be made to utter only a few 
exclamations and unimportant words. 

We become what we are educated to be. This is 
the great law. But this does not make us irrespon- 
sible. Responsibility increases just in proportion to 
the light we have. In proportion as we become edu- 
cated, is a new consciousness of power, a new sense 
of obligation, kindled within. Yet in some things 
are we wholly passive and unconcerned. I am not 
answerable for the fact that my education was in the 
English language, and not in the French ; that my 
religion is the Christian, and not the Jewish. These 
are things in which I have normally neither lot nor 
part. To me it was a pure fatality whether the gov- 
ernment to which I owed obedience was a monarchy 
or a republic. A Mohammedan is not to be blamed 
for being a Mohammedan. " In every nation, he that 
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted 
of him." The point of moral responsibility, in all 
situations, ages, dispensations, is just here ; do 
we live up to the light we have ? But we become 
w^hat we are educated to be. " Train up a child in 
the way he should go, and when he is old he will not 
depart from it." 

I have already intimated that education, in the 
sense in which I now use the term, is not mere 
teaching. It is not the common school, not the Sun- 
day school, not the pulpit, nor the press, alone, which 
educates. The work begins away back in the cradle ; 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 189 

it begins with the first look the mother gives her 
child, the first kiss she impresses on its lips, and the 
first word she speaks in its ears. It includes every 
species of thing that addresses and excites our natu- 
ral sensibilities. It comes down in those impalpable 
shapes of past life, past traditions, past customs, that 
hang as an atmosphere over the community in which 
we live. 

As soon as Laura Bridgman could walk, " she be- 
gan to explore the room and house, and feel the 
form, density, weight, and heat of every article she 
could lay her hands upon " ; and these were the things 
that helped educate her. She felt of her mother's 
hands when she was knitting, and so learned to knit 
herself. Peter saw the beasts around him eating raw 
flesh and walking on all fours, and that became his 
education. Nature helps to educate us. If Laura's 
blue eyes could have been visited by the blue heav- 
ens, her interior life, her sensations, her whole moral 
being, would have been very different. Public sen- 
timent, the laws of the land, the dignity of civiliza- 
tion that surrounds us, contribute to this educating 
process. 

We scarcely realize how we are being every day 
insensibly ^educated. A child is thus continually 
acted upon by a parent. Here are persons now be- 
fore me with particular views and feelings that they 
have thus imperceptibly acquired from their mothers. 
Then, too, we go on to educate ourselves in ten thou- 
sand ways. The exercise of a particular faculty 
prompts us to use it again. Any given enjoyment 
leads us to seek the means for the repetition of that 



190 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

enjoyment. As the spiritual and intellectual facul- 
ties are excited into action, conscience arises in the 
breast, and the sense of right and wrong is felt. 
Truth educates us, and error educates us. 

Now I take Christianity to be the grand and 
divine system for the education of the race. There 
were some educational properties in Judaism, and 
all the ancient religions. But Christianity is chief 
and final. The Mosaic law was a schoolmaster, to 
bring us to Christ ; a primary school, conducting to 
the high-school. I understand that Christ's doctrines 
and example, his life and death, are addressed to hu- 
man nature to develop and unfold it. Not only does 
this system communicate ideas, it arouses reflection, 
it invigorates the faculties and perfects our being. 
There is a natural susceptibility in the human heart 
to Christian truth, as there is to any other truth. 
Some proficiency has been made by the race under 
every species of religious culture. That anticipated 
by Christianity is the highest. The light ever shined 
in the dark place, but Christ was a flood of light 
thrown over the world. The object of culture is to 
create growth, to nourish the latent vitality into vigor 
and fruit. The object of the Christian culture is to 
arouse and perfect the true life in our soifls. 

Laura Bridgman had one birth of the flesh, which 
was flesh. She had another, or new birth, of the 
spirit, when her faculties were reached, and her con- 
science, affections, and reason began to be developed. 
So Mademoiselle Leblanc experienced a new birth 
when she began to speak. Ye must be born again. 
Christianity, in its educational and culturing process, 
not only points, but leads, to regeneration. 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 191 

Look at Christ how and Avhen you will, — buffet- 
ing with temptation on the mountain, teaching the 
people by the sea-shore, plucking wheat on the Sab- 
bath, taking children into his arms, rejoicing in a 
serene peace when Lazarus is raised, weltering in 
agony as his own death draws near, — and he is a 
something of immeasurable force, divine and human, 
addressed to my heart and mind, my conduct and 
steps, to train me also into a divine life. The whole 
is a system of discipline and instruction, designed 
for the perfection of the individual and of the race. 
Christ was supernatural in so far as God was espe- 
cially with him ; but the laws by which he acts on 
the mind are natural. The upshot of the whole is, 
that we are to be educated into Christianity. We 
are, from our earliest years, to be trained in the nur- 
ture and discipline of Christ. Or we are to be nour- 
ished in the discipline and instruction, in the knowl- 
edge and memory, of Christ. 

The Christian Church is a great school for the in- 
struction of the race, a seminary in which the youth 
are to be taught divine truth, and where those of 
mature age are to advance to perfection. A local 
church is as a town school, where the teacher is the 
minister, and all the parishioners are scholars. Not 
that these analogies cover the whole ground, by any 
means. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ, all 
kings and priests unto God. We are all, pastor and 
people alike, learners, disciples of the Great Teacher. 
But throughout the whole is an educational, cul- 
turing idea, improvement of character, development 
of faculties, growth of soul, and perfection of nature. 



192 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

The great commission still is, " Go, teach, instruct, 
educate all nations." Christ announced himself as 
a Teacher^ Instructor, Educator, sent from God. 

Man is not depraved ; that is not why Christ came. 
But man without culture sinks to Peter the wild boy. 
Man with an erroneous culture becomes a Thug of 
India. Man with an imperfect culture is Saul of Tar- 
sus. Man with the highest culture is Paul, Newton, 
Fenelon. Christianity does not address man as a sin- 
ner merely ; it addresses him as a being to be instruct- 
ed, as a being with faculties to be unfolded, with a life 
to be nurtured, with energies to be directed. It ad- 
dresses him with truth, and comes to him with love. 
It finds iMary weeping, and it comforts her ; Mat- 
thew idle, and sets him to work ; Nicodemus errone- 
ous, and enlightens him ; the Pharisee hypocritical, 
and upbraids him. It never addresses childhood as 
a sinner, but as the very type and semblance of its 
own kingdom. 

We become what we are educated to be. If we 
are not all Christians, it is because we have not been 
educated rightly. But education consists of two 
parts, what is done for us, and, secondly, what we do 
for ourselves. It may sometimes be that what has 
been done for us is right, while what we do for our- 
selves is wrong. 

If our children are not growing up Christians, it is 
because they are not being rightly educated. We 
may educate them rightly, others may educate them 
wrongly. We may give them a good education in 
the way of instruction, and a bad one in the way of 
example. We educate by remissness as well as by 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT 



CHRISTIAN LAW. 



193 



fidelity. Our inconsistencies go towards the train- 
ing of our children, as well as our integrity. If there 
are strange and absurd notions afloat touching re- 
ligion and its ordinances, life and its enjoyments, it 
is because people have been indoctrinated with these 
ideas. They would never have got them in any 
other way. 

The Christian Church, in this community, seems 
to have lost the idea that its great object is to edu- 
cate the race, to train souls from infancy to age in 
divine knowledge. It proceeds on the supposition 
that all men are born with a nature totally depraved, 
and that its function is to change human nature, not 
to culture and inspire and elevate it. It does change 
a few, and these few, detached from all the relations 
of life, it gathers into one, keeps them separate from 
the rest, and makes a kind of school of them, and 
calls them disciples, that is, learners. All the others, 
the vast majority of our congregations, are regarded 
simply as sinners ; they are not in the school of 
Christ, — even the little children are not in it. The 
Unitarian Church itself, while, indeed, it has denied 
the doctrine of a depraved nature, has never yet, in 
all fulness and positiveness, gathered its children to 
the central nurture and admonition, the blessing of 
which itself enjoys. 

It is as easy for children to be educated into Chris- 
tians, as into Jews, or Mohammedans, or Hindoos. 
Indeed, if we may trust St. Paul, Christianity is a 
less burdensome and easier rehgion than Judaism. 
It is more humane and liberal and spiritual, and is 
more recommended by all the better sentiments of 

17 



194 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 



our nature. What person amongst us would not 
rather be a Christian than a Jew ? "Who would not 
rather undertake to educate his child a Christian 
than a Jew? Children are educated Jews. Chil- 
dren are not educated Christians. 

It is utterly impossible for any church to do its 
work in the world until it annihilates these traditional 
and purely conventional distinctions to which I have 
referred. It must be one common school for the cul- 
ture of the souls of every man, woman, and child in 
the parish. 

My friends, we can educate our children into 
Christians if we have a mind to do it. I do not for- 
get the agency of God. This is the great work 
which God would have us do, what he commands 
us to do, and what he has promised to bless. We 
are in the way of God's will when we do our part. 
I cannot do this alone, nor you alone, but you and I 
can do it. We have all, parents and children, in 
cant phrase, got to belong to the Church, to be of it, 
every one of us, or we can do nothing. We have 
got to go to school, to belong to the school that the 
Church is ; we have all got to assume the character 
of learners, scholars, disciples, or we cannot so be 
trained and educated. We can do just nothing, to 
have a collection, a gathering, called a school, when 
one hundred pretend to be scholars, and four or five 
hundred are no scholars at all. We are to help edu- 
cate, train, culture one another, — parents their chil- 
dren, husbands their wives, the pastor the people, 
and Christ the whole. 

By education is meant not merely preaching; 



EDUCATIOXj THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 195 

every church service has an effect on the soul, — its 
worship as well as its instruction, its communion, 
and its baptism. The soul wants food just as corn 
does to make it grow. Christ is the great aliment. 
We must all, children and old folks, feed on Christ ; 
either outwardly or inwardly ive must all partake of 
the communion. No man can grow up a Christian, 
who is not, either outwardly or inwardly, a commu- 
nicant. I never expect to see a solitary soul saved, 
or experience the true Christian life, who does not 
partake of the body and blood of Christ. The Sab- 
bath, the Sunday school, the birds and brooks, all, 
all help to culture the soul. 

^* Do the best we can, there are error and vice in 
the world that may counteract our endeavors." Cer- 
tainly, certainly. But we have two things to do : 
first, to train our children in virtue ; second, so train 
them that they will resist the temptations to vice. 
First, train them into truth ; second, so train them 
that they will be armed against all the assaults of 
error. There is yet a third thing : we have so to 
train our children that a part of their mission in this 
earth will be, not alone to be virtuous and truthful, 
but to promote virtue and truth, an^ aid in overcom- 
ing vice and error. 

My friends, you see at a glance the whole object 
of this Christ- Church, — why I am settled here in 
the ministry, why we have Sabbaths, and Sunday 
schools, and singing, and praying, and communing ; 
it is that we may all be trained up Christians, that 
we may be growing Christians ; and especially it is 
that the children may all be brought up in the nur- 



196 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

ture and admonition of the Lord. The question is 
not, how wicked a man is ; that is no question at 
all. The only question is, Are we willing to be 
made better, to improve, to receive divine culture ? 
In establishing a common school, you never ask 
how ignorant a boy is. The more ignorant, the 
more need of schooling. Without schools, the whole 
nation would sink into barbarism ; without true 
Christian schools, we shall all sink to the lowest 
end of the scale of being. It is as easy to train up 
a generation of Christians as a generation of scep- 
tics and blasphemers, if we will only set about it. 

I have said, the grand difference in human beings 
is that of culture, culture beginning in infancy. I 
do not say there is not a diversity of gifts, and of 
temperaments, and of climates, and of social po- 
sitions, if you will ; but all these diversities sink into 
nothing as compared with those generated by cul- 
ture. 

In the Church we shall have some active in good 
works, some eloquent with tongues, some free with 
their money, some to deliberate and some to execute, 
but we shall be Christians still, one Holy Spirit per- 
vading and uniting the body. 

I have said, we think in words. We begin to 
speak and we begin to think, we think more and 
more words. We think in the words we hear, in the 
words our mother teaches us. What is this ? What 
an affecting position ! What an amazing responsi- 
bility I What words, O ye fathers and mothers, will 
you have your children think in, and exercise their 
thoughts upon, and revolve in their minds? I 



EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 197 



will give a brief answer. Every child must begin 
to think in such words as these : I am of the 
kingdom of God ; I am a Christian ; God is my 
Father in heaven ; Christ is my lover and friend ; I 
am to grow up a Christian. 

" Was there ever a time,"' said I to a deacon's son, 
brought up in the very presence of the family altar, 
brought up in full view of the Lord's table, — was 
there ever a time vdien you could say, God is my 
Father in heaven ; I am his child ? " No, never," 
said he. He had not those words to think in, to 
mould his spirit in, to leaven the whole substance of 
his nature. " No," said he ; "I was brought up to 
feel that if I met with a change, and had a new na- 
ture, then I could call God my Father, and myself his 
child; but that, till then, I was only the child of sin 
and Satan." Those were the words given him to 
think in, given him by his own father, and his Sun- 
day-school teacher, and his minister. "Within six 
months I have conversed with a score of just such 
people, having just such words to think in, and to 
conform^ their souls to, — words of death, of damna- 
tion, of despair. Is it a wonder nobody prays, no- 
body enjoys spiritual life? We have corrupted all 
the fountains of a true life in infancy. 

Words to think in, — Peter had no words, and 
he never thought. Suppose Dr. Howe had taught 
Laura Bridgman, in her finger language, these 
words : " I am an undone sinner, my heart is de- 
praved, I hate goodness, God is not my Heavenly 
Father. I can never be a disciple of Christ till my 
nature is changed ! " The result would have been 

17 * 



198 EDUCATION, THE GREAT CHRISTIAN LAW. 

just such a result as is now produced on the minds 
of all the boys and girls of Christendom. 

We are all born into the world just as helpless as 
Peter the wild boy, just as helpless as Laura Bridg- 
man, and we must even take the words that are 
given us. 



I 



SEEMOX 



XI. 



"WE THIXK IN WOPvDS." 

AS HE THI>'KETH IX HIS HEART. SO IS HE. — PrOY. SXiii. 7. 

From the turn things have taken with us result 
certain aspects and relations, perhaps of a novel, but 
certainly of a grave and interesting character.* You 
have become a Church, and your children are recog- 
nized as in it because they are your children. We 
are a company of adult and infant disciples, scholars 
of Christ. What then ? Is that the end ? Nay, 
friends, it is only the beginning. Now the great 
work of our life fairly commences, to be continued 
through time, and to perpetuate itself in the endless 
years of our futurity. We come together, pastor 
and people, to aid one another in this work. From 
Sunday to Sunday it is to go on, in all the routine 
of our days its fruits are to be developed and exhib- 
ited more and more. What is this work ? The 
answer may be variously phrased, but it all comes to 
this. The salvation of our souls, the maturity of 



* vSee Appendix, Note B. 



200 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



our characters, spiritual life in Christ. The whole 
is well enough expressed in the language of our 
Church: "The highest Christian culture, spiritual 
birth and growth, and the perfection of our natures." 
In a word, to be Christians. This explains the ob- 
ject of our whole movement, and is the true reason 
of our becoming a church, and assuming the position 
in which we are. " "We will seek to train our chil- 
dren in the nurture and admonition of the Lord " ; 
nourish them in the schooling and remembrance of 
Jesus. The children are to be trained up for God 
and Christ. The results we aim at are spiritual life, 
or the life of God in the soul. The means by which 
we would reach them are nurture, culture, education. 

I lay this down as a general principle, that the 
means or method whereby we are to attain the high- 
est Christian realizations, or the true end of our be- 
ing, is education, culture, or nurture. There are 
three things : first, the method by which we shall 
act, education ; second, the objects on which we 
act, immortal souls ; third, the end for which we act, 
the Christian maturity of those souls. Each child 
of the Church is as a plant just sprouting in our 
gardens. It has vital energies, but it needs cultiva- 
tion, — and this includes nourishment, tillage, and 
every species of attention, — in order that it may 
produce flowers and fruit, which are its proper des- 
tiny. Education, then, will include feeding the chil- 
dren with spiritual food, nourishing their religious 
affections, developing the higher faculties, repressing 
whatever is evil, and encouraging whatever is good. 
The children, indeed, have vital energies, but their 



" VTE THINK IN WORDS." 



201 



innate vitality requires to be reinforced by the life of 
Godj or they will come to naught, even as Peter the 
wild boy did, — even as a plant does if it be never 
watered. 

By education, I am aw^are, I use a scholastic 
rather than a theological word, and I may be mis- 
understood. Let me explain. By this term I do 
not mean mere teaching or preaching, but all those 
methods whereby the soul may be reached and 
moved to due action. It means example, social in- 
fluence, historical association, the Bible, nature. We 
educate the soul, we cultivate a plant. Cultivation 
is a right application of culturing agencies. We 
hoe the weeds, loosen the soil, apply fertilizers, all 
that the plant may grow and bear fruit. So we 
work upon the soul ; we arouse its faculties, supply 
it with truth, remove its errors, that it may grow^ and 
bear iruit. We would give to the children a fam- 
ily altar, the Sabbath, pulpit instruction, worship, 
the communion. We would pray with them, and 
teach them to pray ; we would furnish them with 
good books ; we would offer them the facilities of 
the Sabbath school. All these are things education 
would do. 

Does this scheme forget the agency of God ? By 
no means. It gives God to the children, his knowl- 
edge, his love, his character. We claim it is the very 
way God would have us adopt, and feel that it is 
that w^iich his blessing will follow. But should we 
not rather seek to sanctify than to educate the chil- 
dren ? They are already sanctified, consecrated to 
God, by birth and by baptism. The children of 



202 



WE THINK IN WORDS." 



believers, the Apostle tells us, are holy. But we 
would educate them into complete and full sanctifi- 
cation. The perfection of the soul cannot be reached, 
we insist, without training. The whole system in- 
cludes prayer, and self-examination, and meditation, 
and attendance on the ordinances. 

With this brief explanation, let me enter upon ^ 
the general subject. I opened it the last Sabbath. 
I showed we became what we were educated to be, 
and that we might become Christians by being edu- 
cated to be Christians ; that if you train up a child 
in the way he should go, when he is old he will not 
depart from it. I purpose at the present time to 
take up some particulars of the general law. I said, 
we think in words. Let us attend to this. It is the 
opinion of philosophers that we think in words. M. 
Lavoisier quotes the observation from Condillac, 
and Dugald Stewart indorses it, that we think only 
through the medium of words. At least, if I rightly 
apprehend what has been written on the subject, it 
is agreed that all processes of reasoning are conduct- 
ed in this way. If you recall the movements of your 
own minds for a day or an hour, I think you will 
perceive that your thoughts are continually clothing 
themselves in words. 

There are certain qualifications to the general 
rule. We think in words that we hear ; that is, we 
think in the sound of words. We think in words 
that we see ; that is, we think in the sight of words. 
One who cannot read, and knows not how words are 
spelt, is thinking in different words, so to say, from 
one who can read. I am not sure, also, that we do 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



203 



not think in the images of things we have seen. We 
may think of a waterfall, landscape,. twilight, in the 
images of those things already lying in the mind. 
We think chiefly through words conveyed to us by 
the eye, the ear, and the imagination. A blind per- 
son cannot think in words conveyed by the eye ; or, 
as I might say, in visible words. A deaf person can- 
not think in words conveyed by the ear ; that is, in 
audible words. A deaf mute cannot think in words 
conveyed through either medium, and as most words 
are conveyed in one way or the other, such a person 
has but few words to think in. Laura Bridgman 
was deaf, dumb, blind, and with only a limited sense 
of smell, and she had almost no words to think in. 
Her sense of touch was exquisite, and all her words 
were of the tangible sort. That is, the few words she 
had took the shape imparted by touch ; she could 
have no other thoughts but those of density, elonga- 
tion, heat, roughness, &c. After Dr. Howe had taught 
her the finger language, she was often found talking 
to herself with her fingers. Peter the wild boy had 
eyes and ears and all the senses, but he never heard 
or saw a word, and of course never spoke a word, 
and had no words to think in. Some cries of ani- 
mals he had heard, and these he imitated. Perhaps 
a cry for hunger ; and when he v\^as in the woods, 
it may be he uttered that cry, and perhaps thought 
in it. He saw water, trees, stars, and these images 
came into his mind, but only as mere blank surfaces. 

In my discourse a year or two since, on language, 
I showed it was impossible to invent a language. If 
persons have no language given to them, they never 



204 



WE THINK IN WORDS." 



come to the possession of one, since they cannot 
create one of themselves. But again, if we have no 
words we have no ideas, or as a general thing our 
ideas and thoughts are proportioned to the words we 
have. Thought is developed along with the power 
of speech. Peter could never speak, and he had no 
thoughts, no true intellectual life. Laura Bridgman 
improved just in proportion as ideas were conveyed 
to her, or as her own capacities were developed ; and 
this was done by giving her words, that is, by cloth- 
ing ideas in material outline and so communicating 
them to her through her sense of touch. 

"We think in words ; but we think in such words 
only as are given to us. We cannot get them of 
ourselves. In this matter, primarily and in the out- 
set of things, we are perfectly helpless, passive. Our 
(Aildren think in such words as we give them, and 
no other. We may give them bad words or good 
words, suggestive or jejune, elegant or coarse, they 
are entirely at our mercy ; we overwhelm them as 
by an absolute fate. Our children think in English 
words, German children in German words, Indian 
children in Indian words ; and there is no help for it. 
By unalterable ordinance of the Almighty, it must • 
be so ; our children cannot think in Arabic, nor an 
Arab's child in English. A blasphemer's children 
think in blasphemous language, a child born at the 
Five Points thinks in Five Points language, the 
child of a reverential, loving family thinks in rever- 
ential, loving language. 

Next, as to the character. It is proven that the 
development of thought is proportioned to the de- 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



205 . 



velopment of speech, and the development of charac- 
ter is proportioned to the developnnent of thought. 
Hence the truth of our text. As a man thinketh, so 
is he. But we think in words, and in such words as 
are given to us ; hence it follows that the character 
of every human being is more or less determined by 
the words that shall be given him. This at least 
applies to the state of childhood and infancy. This 
appears in the cases I have cited. Peter, in a sense, 
had no character, no moral, or religious, or intellec- 
tual character ; no aspirations; no humility, no hope, 
no reason ; I mean next to none. The germs of 
these things were all in him by nature, but they 
were never born. He had no regeneration or birth 
of the spirit. He conformed in all respects to the 
brute beasts with whom he dwelt. 

But to show how character depends on the words 
we think in, consider what is in those words. Almost 
all the ideas the world has ever had, or ever will have, 
are comprised in words. History, science, theology, 
are contained in words. The Bible, the constitution 
of our country, are thus vocalized. Words are the 
gates that let into the soul the flood of ideas. " Lan- 
guage," says Lord Bacon, "is often called an instru- 
ment of thought ; it is also the nutriment of thought ; 
or rather it is the atmosphere in which thought lives ; 
a medium essential to the activity of our specula- 
tive powers ; and an element, modifying by its qual- 
ities and changes the growth and complexion of the 
faculties which it feeds. In this way the influence 
of preceding discoveries on subsequent ones, of the 
past upon the present, is most penetrating and uni- 

18 



206 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



versal. The most familiar words and phrases are 
connected by imperceptible ties with the reasonings 
and discoveries of former men and distant times." 
" Language is the embodiment, the incarnation, of 
the feelings, thoughts, experiences, of a nation, yea, 
of many nations, and of all which through centuries 
they have attained to and won. It is the amber in 
which a thousand precious and subtle thoughts have 
been safely imbedded and preserved." 

Words or language, I say, mould the character. 
If a language is rich in history, poetry, philosophy, 
the education or development of the child is propor- 
tionably rich. There is what is called Thieves' Latin, 
or the flash language used among robbers. Let us 
suppose these robbers to be married, and live in fam- 
ilies, and talk their peculiar language to their chil- 
dren ; these children begin to think in that strange, 
perverted dialect, and their character is insensibly 
shaped by it. 

I say, language, or the use of articulate speech, 
tends to develop all the powers. I cannot say that 
a child does not think before it speaks ; but as soon 
as it begins to speak, its thought is much more ac- 
tive and precise. Speech reacts upon thought, and 
thought upon speech. Words are signs or forms, or 
images of thought, and when you have given a child 
words, you have given it signs or forms or images to 
think in. A child thinks in words before it can speak 
them, because it hears and after a sort understands 
them. I cannot exactly describe the process, nor is 
it needful that I should. The words sink into the 
child's mind, and become pictures of the things to 



AVE THINK IN WORDS." 207 

which they belong. They enter into its moral con- 
sciousness and exert a stimulating power. The word 
viother carries with it the idea of mother, and the word 
remains in the memory when the object it represents 
is absent. As children begin to speak, the vocal or- 
gans are developed, and the use of these organs calls 
in play almost every faculty of the mind. To speak 
correctly, even a little child must think correctly. 
The use of one word rather than another implies 
that the power of analysis begins even in early years. 
"Words do not merely convey information, they act 
silently upon the mental faculties ; they are what 
we use in all moments of reflection. We reason in 
words, we compare in words, we resolve in words, 
we pray in words ; I mean in these latent soul-words. 
Convictions and impressions, remaining with us, 
w^rite their own names at full length on the tablet 
of the heart. 

But to apply these things, how is it that one man 
grows up Peter the wild boy and another a New- 
ton, one a Mohammedan and another a Jew ? We 
say, it is primarily and fundamentally education ; 
and education in this connection means the use of 
words, or the teaching of one set of words rather 
than another. A Mohammedan child hears Moham- 
medan words, a Jewish child Jewish words. These 
Mohamaiiedan words are full of Mohammedan ideas, 
Mohammedan doctrine, history, theology ; suggest 
Mohammedan images. These are a source of moral, 
intellectual, spiritual life to the child. Hence his life 
is Mohammedan life, and he grows up a Mohamme- 
dan man. So of the Jews. So of others. All these 



208 



WE THINK IN WORDS." 



nations, in the administration of their religion, begin 
with the cradle. The Jews were directed in this 
wise : " Ye shall lay up these my words in your heart 
and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon 
your hand, that they may be as frontlets between 
your eyes ; and ye shall teach them unto your chil- 
dren, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine 
house, and when thou walkest by the way, w^hen 
thou liest down, and when thou risest up ; and thou 
shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, 
and upon thy gates." You see what provision was 
made for keeping the words of the Jewish religion 
always before and in the minds of the people, and 
these words were all communicated to the children, 
and these were the words from their first years those 
people had to think in ; and it is no w^onder they 
all grew up Jews. 

I said in my last discourse, it was as easy to grow 
up Christians as to grow up Jews or Mohammedans, 
and as easy to train up a generation of Christians as 
a generation of Jews or Mohammedans. I said, if 
we were not at this moment Christians, it is because 
we have not been rightly educated, either in respect 
of what others have done for us, or what we have 
done for ourselves. And all turns upon this, in the 
infantile stage of things, in the first awakenings of 
moral existence, — the words we have to think in. 

Recollect that your children have no words, and no 
ideas of which words are a sign ; that they cannot ac- 
quire words of themselves ; that they must take such as 
you or somebody may give them, and no others. They 
lie as helpless before your training as they ever lay 



WE THINK IN WORDS.'' 



209 



in your arms. If you were an Indian, they would 
receive your Indian words. If you were a Hindoo, 
they would receive your Hindoo words. They must 
not only receive your words, but the ideas that are 
attached to them. If you were a slaveholder, and 
should tell your little children, the negroes were a 
degraded race, that slavery was a good thing and 
decreed of God, they would receive these words and 
all the ideas they involve. As clay in the hands of 
the potter, so is every little child in the hands of its 
parents. 

Everything depends on what is now done. Let 
us see what the Jew would do. He would teach 
his child that he was a Jew or Israelite, that he was 
in covenant with God, that he was holy, that the 
one God, who in the beginning made heaven and 
earth and supports all things by the word of his 
power, was its God. The child does not understand 
all this ; but these are the words it begins its moral 
life with, these are the words he thinks in : "I am a 
Jew," " I am holy," " I am of the covenant," " God 
is my God." These are the words that take prece- 
dence of all others in the child's mind. These are the 
ideas that enter the susceptible, but, so to say, dor- 
mant soul of the child, and infuse into it their own 
life. These are the signs of things that enter the so 
to say empty brain of the child, and fill it with pic- 
tures. These are the words the child revolves in his 
mind, these are the words of his dreams ; they are the 
seed of his being, they enter into his character, and 
develop him into a full-grown Jevv. 

What do we do ? What do parents, and Sunday- 
IS ^ 



210 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



school teachers, and ministers, in this so-called 
Christian community, generally do? First I ob- 
serve, we never approach children in the direct, pos- 
itive way of the Jew or Mohammedan ; we act 
hypothetically, hesitatingly, negatively. To start 
from the extreme Calvinistic or Augustinian side, and 
then pass from that to om' own position : it is said by 
the Calvinist that God is three. For what purpose, 
or in what manner, no parent under the canopy of the 
sky can explain to the child. Now what sort of an idea 
is that for the child to think in, or mould his charac- 
ter upon ? Next, as to God's paternal relation. God 
is yom' Father in heaven and you are his child, is the 
true idea ; that is the positive form of the thing. But 
do children get those words ? No ; they are told. If 
you become good, if your characters change, if you 
get a new heart, then you will be God's child. Thus 
is the best side of the case thrown into hypothesis, 
and as such dealt out to the child. But there is a 
positive side to Calvinistic instruction. It is this. 
You are a sinner, you have done this thing wrong 
and that thing wrong ; we do not know that you are 
of the elect ; you are out of the covenant, you may 
die and go to hell. These are the words multitudes 
are giving their children to think in. " Sinner," 
wickedness," hell," " God does not love me," 
"no child of God"; — these are the words given 
them to dream upon, to see new meanings in, to 
enter their natures as the quickening agent of their 
moral life. 

Now as to our own children, the great fact, my 
friends, is, — (although we mean nothing wrong, no- 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



211 



body does,) — the fact is, we have borrowed our habits 
of instructing children from those about us ; we im- 
prove upon the method, as perhaps we fancy, we soften 
its rigors, but we embody many of its essential features. 
We have very little directness or positiveness of style ; 
we never dare approach our children in the full, 
open, frank way, the Jew or the Mohammedan does. 
For instance, we do not tell our children they are 
Christians, that God loves them and they are God's 
children, that they are holy, that they are of the 
Church, or in the covenant, or Christ's disciples. 
We too approach them hypothetically ; a vision of 
something, we hardly know what it is, like the birds 
by the way-side, is always catching up the truths we 
sow, before they take root. But there is no neutral 
ground, we must tell our children they are Christians 
and holy, or that they are not ; we have got to give 
them either positive Christian words to think in, or 
their opposites. I suppose we generally put the case 
problematically, and tell children, if they grow up 
good they will be Christians, and God will love 
them. The Jew begins just the other way. He 
says to his child, you are a Jew, and you must act 
like one. He never says. If, as you grow up, you do 
right, then you will be a Jew. In other words, we 
are always implying in our own minds, or in the 
form of words we use, that some change or revolu- 
tion in the future must ensue before the child can be 
a Christian, or holy, or a lover of God, or in the 
covenant. 

Here, then, is that which diseases all our instruc- 
tions, which takes their vitality out of them, and 



212 



" WE THINK IN AVORDS." 



which destroys their power over the character. We 
are educating children on an hypothesis, not on the 
direct word of God. They begin their days on an 
hypothesis, and continue and end them in the same 
w^ay. " If I should meet with a change,'^ — that is 
the current phrase. " I may, I may not ; I will wait 
and see." These are the words the child has to 
think in. We give him no proper foundation to rest 
upon. We do not plant him at once and for ever on 
Christ. The child wantons through the world. It 
never knows when it is a Christian, or whether it is 
or not. We fling its character out on a fleeting and 
uncertain future, as a swift stream, and it fetches up 
when and w^here it may. All our children are at 
this moment afloat, just as we started them, Heaven 
only knowing whither, or w^here they will ever land. 

Now, what children need is positive, affirmative 
Christian words and Christian ideas. They need 
these at the very first dawning of intelligence, and 
such words must forestall every other kind of words. 
Such words children get under every other relig- 
ious dispensation except the Christian. Such words 
they get w^ith us, in every matter excepting Chris- 
tian nurture. You tell your child she is your child, 
that you are her mother, that you love her ; these, in 
the family, are the rich, positive, potent words your 
children have to think in. You never address your 
child as a little girl of uncertain parentage, who, if 
she grows up good, and meets with a change, may 
be your child. You always say. You are my child, 
you are called by the family name, you belong to 
the family covenant, and now you must grow up a 



" AVE THINK IN WORDS." 



213 



good child ; you love me, I love you. These are the 
positive, affirmative words we give our children to 
think in, and to build upon. There are no ifs nor 
may-hes in the case, no problems, no unsettling of 
foundations. So in state matters, we always teach 
our children positively, affirmatively, that they are 
republicans, American citizens, in political covenant 
with their parents. We train them up in this way 
of thinking ; and when they are old, as a general 
thing, they do not depart from it. A man who vio- 
lates the laws, who breaks the great political cove- 
nant, is looked upon as an exception, a monstrosity, 
with whom your child has nothing in common ; and 
you always teach your child to be thankful he has 
not been left to do such things. In Church or Chris- 
tian matters, everything is reversed. " We are all 
sinners," " We all deserve to be punished together," 
" We are all violators of the covenant." These and 
such like v/ords we teach our children in the earliest 
hour of their intelligence. 

Here, then, is the bitter root of all we mourn over 
in contemplating the religious aspects of society ; 
here is the great underlying cause why w^e have not 
grown up Christians. We have instruction enough : 
we have Sunday schools, catechisms, preaching, 
meetings ; but our children get no positive, direct, 
affirmative Christian instruction. I venture to say 
there are not ten children in this whole city, under 
ten years of age, who dare call themselves Chris- 
tians. We are ourselves, whenever we approach 
them, always halting between two opinions. The 
children do not know, spiritually speaking, whether 



214 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



they are children of God or children of the Devil. 
They have no true, positive, intelligible Christian 
words to think in. Here is your little babe, born of 
your blood, thrown into your sphere, open to your 
culture, in one sense blank space, a tabula rasa^ 
empty of all words, all ideas, wholly depending on 
you for the turn its being shall take. It may with 
perfect ease become a Roman Catholic, a Quaker, 
an Indian, a believer in Juggernaut, a follower of 
Baal or of God. 

An Indian, I say. Let me relate a piece of his- 
tory. In Colonial times, the Indians made captive 
the family of the Rev. John "Williams of Deerfield, 
Massachusetts, and took them to the wilds of Can- 
ada. These persons were all restored to their homes 
excepting the youngest daughter of Mr. Williams, 
Eunice, a child six or seven years old, who was 
adopted into an Indian family. She was taught the 
Indian language, inured to the Indian manners. She 
lived in a wigwam, wandered in the woods; she 
wore a blanket, leggins, and moccasons. She had 
no books, and, if she could ever read, probably forgot 
how. She was taught the Indians' religion, which 
at that time contained a mixture of Romanism. 
She married an Indian husband, and bore Indian 
children. In short, she had Indian words to think 
in, Indian ideas for her soul to develop in, and she 
became an Indian. Nor is this all. A few years 
afterwards, she, her husband, and family, probably at 
the intercession of her white relatives, came to Deer- 
field, where her father and brothers and sisters were 
then living. Her friends tried to induce her to aban- 



" WE THINK IN Vv^ORDS." 



215 



don her Indian associations and ways, and return to 
civilized life. One Sunday she vras persuaded to put 
on an English attire, to attend church in. She went 
to church, where her own father preached, in the fore- 
noon. In the afternoon, says the historian, she 
indignantly threw off her gown, and resumed the 
blanket. She would go back to the woods. No 
supplications or promises, no entreaties of parental 
affection, no earnestness of fraternal love, could induce 
her to remain." Her own father ! — she did not know" 
him ; and he, wretched man I must behold his child, 
this little pet child of his memory, this last child of 
a beloved wife who perished in those dreadful wars, 
this one darling of his heart and his prayers so long 
mourned over, so long lost, — he must now behold her 
alienated from him, separated as by those eternal 
barriers that divide the polar wastes from the culture 
and fertility of tropical life, and all because of edu- 
cation. 

The same is true of our own children, — we may 
gain them, we may lose them. Every little child in 
this house may become an Indian, a Tartar, a Jew, 
or a Christian. Of course, it is presupposed that 
we not only begin, but continue, to train them in the 
right way. It is a singular, a mournful fact, that 
multitudes of parents among us comm^ence nearly 
right with their children when they are young, but 
they soon slide off into the prevailing scepticism. 
There are mothers who teach their nurslings to pray 
" Our Father," but in eight or ten years the habit is 
is entirely abandoned; the mother does not know 
whether her child is a Christian or not. 



216 



WE THINK IX WORDS." 



As I said, all, primarily, depends on the words we 
give our children to thinli in. And these words must 
be positive, whole words, not indecisive, not half- 
way expressions. We must cease to be sceptics 
ourselves, and become believers. We must leave off 
this don't-know habit. Ask anybody. Are you a 
Christian ? I don't know." Are you a believer ? 
" I don't know." This don't-know " gets into the 
children, and, never knowing, they never are. You 
give your children indecisive words, and you render 
their characters indecisive. But we are so afraid our 
children have got to have a new nature before any- 
thing can be done, Vv^e dare not touch them. We 
can give our children just ichat nature ice choose to 
give them. Let an Indian take your child, and he 
w411 give it an Indian nature ; let a Gypsy take it, 
and he will give it a Gypsy nature. If you will 
take it and do by it as you ought to do, you can, 
with the blessing of God, give it a Christian nature. 
Not that the essential lineaments of its nature can 
ever be changed, only it can be developed in a Chris- 
tian or any other way. Cliristian life can be infused 
into it, or heathen ; Christian ideas can become the 
seed of its mind, or Jewish. 

I said in my last discourse, that Christianity is the 
highest culture of the soul. It is the depository of 
the divinest ideas. It is a river of water of life, 
clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and 
the Lamb, at w^hich all may drink life into their be- 
ing. It causes human nature to grow into the image 
of Christ. It is for us so to impart it to our children 
that their nature may assume this lofty type. This 



WE THINK IN WORDS." 



217 



is what I mean by giving our children what nature 
we please. All culture, Pagan or Christian, super- 
induces a sort of second nature on the normal con- 
ditions, or, more exactly speaking, develops the na- 
ture in the line of its peculiar ideas, whatever they 
may be. If the Christian nature be a secondary 
formation, we can superinduce that upon our chil- 
dren. 

Christianity gives us positive words that we are to 
impart to our children to think in, or signs of posi- 
tive ideas. Its Sabbath, its baptism, its Lord's Sup- 
per, are all signs of positive ideas. Its doctrines of 
the one God, the one humanity, of love, of purity, 
of peace, of forgiveness, are positive doctrines. In 
respect of children, Christ's words are most direct 
and explicit: " Of such is the kingdom of heaven" ; 
" Feed my lambs." " The promise is unto you and to 
your children," says Peter. " Your children are holy," 
says St. Paul ; and he universally addresses the chil- 
dren as saints, believers, Christians. See how copious 
is the supply, and how momentous the application, of 
positive Christian words for the children. " This do 
in remembrance of me " ; — this applies to every 
child as much as to any human being, if we would 
have it grow up a Christian. I must do that in 
remembrance of Christ " — are words you must give 
your children to think in ; such words must be lodged 
in their memories, be ruminated upon in their leis- 
ure, and give shape and stimulus to their spiritual 
growth. This is not to be qualified by conditions, 
or set aloof in the limbo of scepticism. And this 
was my aim a few weeks since, when I gathered the 

19 



218 



"we think in words." 



children before me. "We are to become communi- 
cants," were the words I sought to lodge in their 
memories, and gave to them to think in. 

But more, let every child be given this to say to 
himself, to commit to memory : " I am a Christian." 
I know, my friends, we start at this ; we shudder as 
if we saw an apparition ; we wonder what the world 
will say. But to this complexion we must come. 
Our children must begin life by being Christians ; 
they have got in the very start to feel that they are 
Christians, and to be able to say so. " I am a Chris- 
tian " — are the words they must have to think in ; — 
the whole thing, no tampering, no half-way. Your 
child is either a Jew, a Pagan, or a Christian. Or, 
if you please to teach it so, it is neither one thing 
nor the other ; and give it those words to think in 
and mould its character unto, and it will become 
just what our children are becoming, neither one 
thing nor another. " I am a lamb of Christ, Christ is 
my good Shepherd, I am to be fed by him " ; — these 
words are to go explicitly, emphatically, into the 
mind of the child. They are to be among the first 
Christian words he hears, and to be among those 
forces whereby his whole being shall be wrought 
into the Divine image. That the child is a disciple 
of Christ, a student of the Divine, a scholar of the 
Infinite, he is in the same way to know, and this 
should constitute one of his earliest lessons. 

I have said that children can be trained up Chris- 
tians, and am now trying to indicate how the thing 
may be done ; and I repeat, we must cease training 
them up sinners, or pagans, or nothingarians; we 



" WE THINK IN WORDS. 



219 



must give them a positive Christian training. In 
other phrase, instead of uncertain, problematic, Sa- 
tanic words, we must give them full and positive 
Christian words to think in. There is more con- 
tained in the text than we, perhaps, imagined. As 
one thinketh, so is he ; and especially as the child 
thinks in the beginning, so will it afterwards be. 

I continue the inculcation. " God is my Father 
in heaven." I am his child.'* " God loves me." 

I love God.'' Such, again, are examples of these 
positive religious words our children are to hear 
among the first words they hear at all about God, or 
see printed in their little primers. That children 
may grow up Christians, they must grow up in the 
nearest possible relationship to Christ. That they 
may do this, they must grow up with the feeling 
that Christ is their dearest, best friend, benefactor, 
shepherd, deliverer. For this, then, these blessed 
words must be given them to think in. Then the 
child must know that he is a branch, a twig of the 
vine, a member of the body ; in gther words, that he 
is, as we say, a church-member ; that he belongs to 
the Church, and the Church belongs to him ; that he 
is in and of the Church. These are words and ideas 
that the child must begin its thinking in : " I am a 
Church boy," or " a Church girl." 

One reason why words are so powerful is because 
they are full of ideas. This word Churchy — what a 
history, what a future, what grandeur, what recollec- 
tions, what truths, it suggests ! How it ascends into 
heaven ! how it sinks into the deepest heart of earth- 
ly goodness I You give this word to your child to 



220 



" WE THINK IX AVORDS/' 



think in, and to feel in ; and by and by. in the course 
of nature, all its force vitalizes the mind of the child, 
and erelong all its vastness uplifts the being of the 
child to its own proportions. As it is now, we are. 
to speak strongly, killing our children quite, by keep- 
ing from them that which is so pregnant a word, so 
glowing with ideas ; that is, by giving them neither 
the Church nor any true Church words to think in. 
Here, in this great universe, offspring of the one Cre- 
ator, with natures whose true development would be 
divine, with capacities vrhose stretch no archangel 
knows, we everywhere are hesitating to have these 
little ones feel and know and think and say, God 
- is my Father; i am his child." 

-My friends, we become what«we are educated to 
be. ^Ye may educate or train our children to be 
Christians, and they, in their turn, may do the same. 
Human nature is a garden ; we may raise figs or 
thistles in it. 'We may cause it to blossom v.'iih 
roses or to gloom with deadly nightshade. [Mothers, 
this work must begin with the cradle ; it must enter 
the nursery, and lay its foundations deep and im- 
movable in the first years of our being. The new- 
born child, a stranger here, the mystery of being all 
before it, looks out upon the universe, and, we may 
well suppose, asks after its conditions. Is there a 
God for the child ? is there a Church for the child ? 
is there a Christ for it ? Then tell it so. Young 
mother, on whose lap lies your first child, that child's 
lips will never speak until you teach it; its mind 
will never think until you teach it ; and it will speak 
such words as you give it, and think such thoughts 



"we think in words." 



221 



as you impart to it; and these words will go into its 
mind and form the pabulum of its growth. It may 
lisp the name of Mohammed, or Moses, or Christ, 
just as you shall teach it, and with these names will 
enter into its soul all those innumerable, but inde- 
finable impressions that belong to them respectively. 
Its darling desire may be, as it grows up, to roam 
the forest with Eunice Williams, or to enjoy the 
quiet of a Christian home, just as it shall be taught. 
If you hesitate, the child will hesitate ; if you doubt, 
the child will doubt. If you do not know if God is 
its Father in heaven, it will not know. If you do 
not know if it is a Christian, it wiU not know if it is 
a Christian. If you wait, it will wait. "Wait, do I 
say ? Nay, it will rush on somicwhere ; the world 
will give it words to think in, if you do not. Its de- 
velopment will hasten, God only knows how; it will 
grow up something, if not a Christian ; and when 
you think it high time for it to be a Christian, it will 
perhaps be gone for ever beyond your grasp. 

We have been hesitating, many of us, all our 
lives, about this whole subject of religion, Christian- 
ity, and the Church, and our children are exact cop- 
ies of us, every one of them. Do you say, if we do 
as well as we can, others, the community about us, 
will spoil aU our work ; that while we are teaching 
our children good words to think in, they will fill 
them with bad words. There is some truth in this, 
but not all truth. Others may hinder our work, they 
cannot destroy it. But I have so charitable an opin- 
ion of the community around us, as to believe that, 
whenever it sees us really determined to train up our 

19^ 



222 



" WE THINK IN WORDS.' 



children Christians, they will be, if not won to emii- 
lation, at least awed into silence. 

By Christian instruction, in this connection, as I 
have said, I do not mean elaborate discourse, nor 
protracted lessons, but a few words, positive, vital, 
eternal; a few words out of that great repository of 
divine truth, the Bible ; words that come flaming to 
us with a heavenly meaning in them ; words that 
are to become the children's words ; words that will 
begin to nourish the young soul, and will continue 
to nourish it when time shall be no more. The 
creed of the Mohammedans is very brief. God is 
one, and Mohammed is his prophet." This is the 
initial word to that whole system ; this is the sim- 
ple nursery word that lays in childhood the founda- 
tion of that wonderful Mohammedan faith and life. 
Such words as these: God is my Father, I am his 
child*'; " Christ is my Shepherd, I am his lamb" ; 

The Church is my company, at its altars I com- 
mune "; ^' I am a Christian, and am to be like Christ," 
— brief, simple, — are enough, only they must be pos- 
itive, direct, soul-sufficing, soul-illuminating words, 
the full force of which will grow upon the child, just 
as all nature does, so long as he shall live. These, and 
such words, must precede all other words, withstand 
all other words, and never give place to other words. 
No matter how much else the child may know, or 
how vast may be its acquisitions, these things must 
lie at the roots of his being. Away with this pro- 
visoing and balancing, away with this dilly-dally and 
hesitation. We make the word of God of none 
effect to the children ; we deal with them at arm's 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



223 



length ; we treat with them over the fence ; we im- 
agine a great gulf between what they are and what 
they ought to be, instead of seeing the royal high- 
way which marks the path. 

You see, as I have told you, our idea of the 
Church does not trench upon the Family. The 
Family nowhere becomes so momentous as in the 
light of this idea. In one sense, all my burden of 
the Church I lay down at your feet, ye fathers and 
mothers. Nor is the responsibility a fearful one ; it 
is simply a pleasant and a natural duty. I say, give 
words to the children to think in. Christ is called 
the Word of God, as if God had spoken, and the 
voice took shape in Christ ; as if God had written a 
book, and the book were Christ ; as if God had 
graven something on the heart of humanity, and 
that som.ething were Christ, the blessed Word of 
God. Let the children think that Christ is theirs, 
that they are Christ's, and all are God's. Train 
them up to this conviction, and, if anything in the 
wide world will tend to form them Christians, I am 
sure this will. 

Our children may sin and fall away as Peter did ; 
they may backslide and go into captivity as the Jews 
did ; but we shall have done our duty, w^e shall have 
discharged our responsibility. Yet we have the 
promise, if we train them in the way they should go, 
when they are old they will not depart from it. I 
know man is evermore liable to fall ; but the only 
course by which we can prevent our children from 
becoming sinners, is to train them to be Christians. 
The only way to keep them out of the world is to 



224 



" WE THINK IN WORDS." 



train them up in the Church ; the only way to save 
them from becoming the children of Belial, is to 
make them feel that they are the children of Christ. 
As they think, so will they be. If they think in 
words of sin, they will be sinners ; but if they think 
in the words of Christ, they will be Christians. 



SERMON XII. 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 

CHARGE THE3r THAT THET TEACH NO OTHER DOCTRINE, NEITHER 
GIVE HEED TO FABLES AND ENDLESS GENEALOGIES, TTHICH 
MINISTER QUESTIONS, RATHER THAN GODLY EDIFYING, WHICH 
IS IN FAITH. NOW THE END OF THE C03IMANDMENT IS CHARITY 

[loye] OUT OF A PURE HEART. — 1 Timothy i. 3 - 5. 

In addressing myself to the teachers of our Sun- 
day school, let me premise that I consider it a de- 
partment of the Church, coming fully within the 
precinct of Church influences and authority ; it is a 
sort of seed-bed and nm'sery of the Church. One 
of its leading objects is to prepare the children to 
be mature Christians, true Churchmen and Church- 
women. I hold that all who enter the Sunday 
school do, to a certain degree, commit themselves 
to the Church, and to a Christian life. They and 
the Church assume certain mutual obligations to 
each other. A teacher in this important province of 
the Church, as he is a nominal Churchman, so also 
ought he to be a sound Christian. He undertakes 
an office in the Church, he proposes to instruct in the 
knowledge of Christianity, and he should be, in the 
words of the Apostle, blameless, vigilant, sober, apt 



226 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



to teach, gentle unto all, in meekness instructing 
those that oppose themselves, holding fast the faith- 
ful word as he has been taught, showing himself a 
pattern of good works. 

The office of the Sunday-school teacher is a kind 
of delegated pastorate. He deals with the undergrad- 
uates of religion, he takes the spiritual meat which 
is served to the people generally, and, so to say, cuts 
it up for the little ones. The great thing to be 
taught is Christianity; not in the artificial shapes 
that abound on every hand, but just as we find it in 
the simple text of Scripture. And when I say Chris- 
tianity, I mean, of course, among other things, moral 
duties. These are a part, a vital and integral part, 
of what the New Testament contains. It is just as 
much a part of Christianity that the children should 
love one another, that they should be peacemakers, for- 
giving, honest, truthful, as obedience to any precept 
that can be found in the same grand system. Nor do 
I mean by the term Christianity to shut out all refer- 
ence to a consideration of the wide field of illustration 
to be found in nature. He has the highest authority 
for availing himself of resources of that sort in the 
example of Christ himself, who walked with his dis- 
ciples through the corn-fields and led them by the 
margin of the waters. Nay, Christianity cannot be 
perfectly taught, I think, except by the aids derived 
from the phenomena of nature. One who never 
saw or heard of the grass of the field, of the vine, or 
of the mustard-tree, could never explain intelligibly 
Christ's doctrine of God's providence, the Holy Spirit, 
or the kingdom of heaven. 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



227 



It is incumbent on the Sunday-school teacher, 
who is, as we see, a Church or Christian teacher, a 
sub-minister of the Gospel, thoroughly to understand 
the Scriptures, and get as deeply as may be into the 
mind of Christ. With all our boasted research, free- 
dom of investigation, improvement, progress, there 
is, after all, in this age, in this country, perhaps, a 
certain tendency to superficiality. We have super- 
ficial farmers, mechanics, artists, editors, lawyers, 
physicians, clergymen, and very likely superficial 
Sunday-school teachers. There is a want of a due 
understanding of the thing on which men undertake 
to act. The old plan of apprenticeship is out of 
vogue, and boys quickly come to be journey- 
men, and journeymen, masters. A Sunday-school 
teacher should understand his business. He should 
make himself master as far as practicable of what 
he teaches. That he miay teach Scripture well, he 
should penetrate the meaning of Scripture. That 
he may teach Christ well, he should enter into the 
spirit of Christ. Simple adherence to question and 
answer in a text-book will not sufHce. He must 
explain, compare, illustrate, and enforce. 

The Gospel is not a simple book to us. It is 
wrapped like a mummy in countless folds of igno- 
rance and mistake, and its fresh, beautiful life is 
smothered and wellnigh lost. Ages of misinterpre- 
tation obscure it. A superstitious light gleams 
about it. We approach it under the disadvantage 
of all the WTonsf education we have received from 
our childhood to this day. I could sometimes wish 
that the Sunday-school teacher, as well as others, 



228 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



might for a moment forget that he had ever seen 
the Gospel of Jesus, so that he might go to it as a 
new book, a new history, that he might thus experi- 
ence all the freshness and beauty of its revelations, 
and with unbiased mind and childlike heart en- 
deavor to appropriate its great truths. It is of the 
highest importance that we should understand the 
New Testament, for the reason that to us it is the 
sole rule of faith and guide of life. We reject the 
commonly received creeds and formulas of churches 
about us, and betake ourselves to the sim.ple word 
of God, in which all-important rules of duty and 
forms of faith are simply expressed. 

The teacher should love to teach. He should 
cherish a deep interest in divine truth, in the souls 
of his pupils, and in all things connected with his 
vocation. There are difficulties to encounter, dis- 
couragements to face, and nothing but a hearty love 
of teaching can carry him through them all. He 
should devote a portion of every week to preparation 
for his Sunday's work. He should give specific at- 
tention to the Scripture lesson. If the life of Christ 
is his great theme, let him sympathize with Christ, 
and aim to communicate that sympathy to his pu- 
pils. Let him not tread indifferently on that holy 
ground, or pass coldly over those touching topics. 
Did Christ go down into Samaria? Where was 
Samaria ? Who were the Samaritans ? What was 
their relation to the Jews ? Wherein lies the great 
interest of that particular movement of Jesus ? Let 
the teacher deeply ponder on things like these. Is 
Christ preaching to the people? Let your own 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



229 



heart be amazed at his doctrine. Does he pluck 
corn on the Sabbath day ? Let the children under- 
stand from this that duty and right are not to be 
postponed to expediency and conventionality. 

There is another point on which I wish to offer 
some suggestions. It is involved in the question 
whether you should teach the children doctrines. 
On the supposition that we have a right idea of the 
term, I answer, Yes, by all means. Let the children 
be indoctrinated. Let no child ever leave the Church 
Sunday school without being thoroughly informed 
in all the doctrines of the Church. But what do we 
mean by doctrines ? As has been already indicated, 
I mean the simple Gospel of the Son of God, — all 
that of which the Gospel is at once the basis, es- 
sence, and repository. I mean Christian doctrines, 
that is, doctrines w^hich Christ taught. I mean 
evangelical doctrines, that is. Gospel doctrines. I do 
not mean what ordinarily passes under the name of 
doctrines. I mean Gospel doctrine, which is simply 
Gospel teaching. 

But do I mean Unitarian doctrine? I mean pre- 
cisely that. And what is Unitarian doctrine ? It is 
what Christ taught. Unitarian doctrines are Chris- 
tian doctrines, evangelical doctrines, Christ's doc- 
trines, — no more, no less. But does the question 
still return. What are Unitarian doctrines ? The 
answer itself resolves into a question. Did Christ 
teach anything ? Did he utter any important truth ? 
Did he announce any great principle ? If he did, 
that is Unitarian doctrine. Did Christ leave any 
enduring impressions on the minds of his immedi- 

20 



230 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



ate disciples? Did John, or Peter, or Martha, or 
Mary, derive any appreciable, interesting, or solemn 
lessons or ideas from him ? These are Unitarian 
doctrines. Did they believe in anything, or have 
faith in anything? That is our belief, our faith. 
You are, then, to teach what Christ taught, and that 
is Unitarianism. I speak advisedly. It is the 
beauty and the boast of Unitarianism, that it takes 
off those folds which have been wrapped about the 
Gospel, exhumes the sacred page, and lets us have it 
in its original and undiminished glory. 

Here, now, we come to an understanding of some 
things. In one of those creeds which, at some for- 
mer time, I quoted to you, it is asserted that Christ 
and the Holy Spirit are God ; and that is called a 
doctrine. In another, it is set down that man is to- 
tally depraved ; and that also is called a doctrine. 
Such statements are pronounced Christian, evangel- 
ical, orthodox doctrines, and they are taught as 
such in the neighboring Sunday schools. Now, in 
this sense, we have no doctrines. We have no doc- 
trines independent of and aside from the plain teach- 
ings of Christ, such as I shall insist those just re- 
ferred to are. 

Did Christ teach that he was supreme God ? 
Granting that, to some minds, there are obscure 
hints of such an idea in the Bible, granting that 
there is here and there a passage not readily to be 
explained on any other hypothesis, still, did Christ 
teach that fact? That is the question. Did he 
clearly, plainly, professedly teach any such thing? 
Whereabouts ? I have studied the New Testament 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



231 



not a little, and I never saw the passage. He did 
teach some things clearly, plainly, professedly, and 
those we gladly believe ; he did not teach the Trin- 
ity, and we do not believe it. 

Again, as to total depravity ; did Christ teach that 
doctrine ? When and where ? By coupling together 
every allusion to the wickedness and errors of man 
from Genesis to Revelation, you may possibly make 
out the semblance of such a doctrine ; but did Christ 
teach it ? How, then, can we ? And here I may 
observe that the Romanists, the largest and oldest of 
the nominal Churches, do not pretend that the doc- 
trine of the Trinity is taught in the New Testament. 
They hold it as one of the traditions of what they 
call the Church. This leads m^e to say, tha.t all these 
dogmas belong to those "other doctrines'' which 
Paul charged Timothy not to have taught. They 
belong to a class of "fables and genealogies," tra- 
ditions of the elders, " which minister questions 
rather than godly edifying." Observe what a char- 
acterization is here ! What a test by which we may 
know the true from the false. " Which minister 
questions." What questions, what disputes, there 
have been about these points of the Trinity and total 
depravity ! How has the Church been in an endless 
ferment on these subjects ! " A genealogy " ! — how 
strictly does that term apply to this tenet of the 
Trinity, involving the generation of Christ and of 
the Holy Ghost; the question whether Christ was 
really God, or was generated of God, as light from 
the sun ; and whether the Holy Ghost was derived 
from God the Father or God the Son, or both, — a 



232 



THE Sabbath school. 



purely genealogical question ! " Fables," too, — 
myths, — could the Apostle have described these 
things in more appropriate language ? 

But what is the great Unitarian doctrine ? You 
mean, rather, what is the great doctrine of Christ, 
and of Christianity ? or what did Christ most em- 
phatically, elaborately, and plainly teach ? The 
Apostle seems to furnish an answer to this question 
in our text. " Now the end of the commandm.ent," he 
says, " is love, out of a pure heart." He cautions 
Timothy as to what should not be taught, and then 
impresses on him what is the sum and substance of 
all teaching and doctrine, namely, love out of a pure 
heart. This is the end of the commandment, the 
grand consummation of the whole matter; all vital- 
ity, all essentiality, all fundamentalness of doctrine 
and belief, is contained in this. This is the fulfilling 
of the law ; and Paul elsewhere seems to speak as 
if he did not know there was any other command- 
ment. 

To return now to the question. Shall we teach the 
children doctrines ? I reply, Yes ! But what are 
doctrines ? I have given you specimens of what are 
called doctrines, what are everywhere taught for 
such, and professedly believed. But they are what 
the Apostle calls fables and genealogies, what Christ 
calls traditions of men. They are not the genuine 
Christian doctrines ; they are not Unitarian doc- 
trines. I have just given an instance of a Unitarian 
doctrine, — love out of a pure heart; and this doc- 
trine I want teachers in the Sunday school to teach. 
I want you to teach it as one of the great, cardinal 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



233 



doctrines of the Unitarian Church, to teach it as a 
most vital, searching, paramount doctrine of Chris- 
tianity. You should inculcate it as that on which 
all the law and prophets hang, for the voice of inspi- 
ration tells us it is so. The faithful teacher will tell 
the children how love to God and love to man fulfils 
the law ; he will show chapter and verse in the Bible 
where it is said, " He that loveth is born of God ; 
he will impress upon their minds how this love is 
greater than faith or hope, greater than all conceiv- 
able things ; he will demonstrate to them what are 
the fruits and evidences of it ; he will instruct them 
in the methods of preserving, strengthening, and 
increasing this chiefest of Christian graces. In a 
word, he will indoctrinate them in this doctrine. He 
will so thoroughly indoctrinate them that they will 
all know the essential element and groundwork of 
their faith ; and should any one ask them what they 
believe, or what is a doctrine of the Unitarian 
Church, they will at once and comprehensively 
reply, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and thy 
neighbor as thyself." 

But while love is chief, it is only one of our doc- 
trines. There is the great and goodly doctrine of 
the Divine Unity. This primarily means that God 
is one, that he has no equal. The teacher will show 
the child how the Bible asserts, and nature in all its 
manifestations confirms, this doctrine. But the doc- 
trine of the Divine Unity means much more than 
this ; it expresses other ideas besides the nature of 
God. Unity, Unitarianism, a most pregnant word, 
if you but consider its scope and amplitude, runs all 

20* 



234 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



through the Bible. " Hear, O Israel ! The Lord our 
God is one God." That is Unitarianism. We have 
one God, the Father, one Lord, Jesus Christ, one 
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who 
is above all and over all and in you all. This, again, 
is Unitarianism. Unitarianism, Unityism, Oneness, 
all mean the same thing. This word Unitarian is a 
glorious word, of a vast and most comprehensive 
scope. " Unite is from the same primitive, and the 
famous word "Atonement" is descended from the 
same stock. Christ prays that we all may be one 
together with him, and with God, — unitarianized, 
atoned. God would gather all things together in 
one^ unitarianize all things. This universal commun- 
ion is in our minds when we speak of Unitarianism ; 
and such a consummation is what we desire when 
we plead for the indoctrination of the children, 

Unitarianism, I say, pervades the Gospel ; it is 
one of its reigning characteristics. There is no Trin- 
itarianism in any part of it. Christ came on a Uni- 
tarian purpose, to unite, to atone all men, by bring- 
ing them into union with himself, and with God the 
Father of all. There is indeed none other God but 
one. We are baptized into one, united, Unitarian 
body, and we pray for the time when there shall be 
but one Shepherd and one fold. I am not quibbling 
in this use of terms ; I disdain to play upon words. 
This is the solemn and deep meaning of things ; and 
this spirit and purpose of unity, so dear to the heart 
of Christ, so emphasized by him in the development 
of his scheme of redemption, is what makes up my 
Unitarianism. Ask me to give up the word Unita- 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



235 



rianism! You might as \vell deprecate the fulfil- 
ment of that prayer of Christ wherein he so yearned 
for the unity of his disciples. Unitarianism has no 
taint of sectarism. It '-stands for the absolute and 
universal truth of God. I would have the children, 
in this highest and holiest sense, in this evangelical 
and truly orthodox sense, in head and in heart, in 
sentiment and in life, unitarianized, — atoned, unified, 
united to God and Christ and one another, to the 
God of nature and the universe, 

Unitarianism, as we define it, as we would have it 
taught, as it lies in the Bible, is no shallow thing, no 
half-way system, no cold dogma, no barren state- 
ment. It is life and spirit. It is like Christ, its 
great representative, unto us wisdom and sanctifica- 
tion and redemption. It rises, indeed, into the sub- 
limest region of speculation ; but it stays not there, 
it condescends to our very feet, it grapples with the 
whole of our being, the full circle of time and eter- 
nity. There is the doctrine of the Fatherhood of 
God, taught, illustrated, beaming like the sun, all 
through Scripture. There is the doctrine of univer- 
sal brotherhood, — rare, precious, august doctrine of 
Christianity. There is the doctrine of the dignity, 
the worth of human nature, upon which the churches 
round about, the preaching round about, a thousand 
influences round about, are perpetually crowding, but 
w^hich is to be reasserted and defended, and incul- 
cated over and over again ; a doctrine often declared 
and always implied in Scripture ; implied in every 
law God has given, in every dispensation he has 
made ; implied alike in cursing and beatitude, alike 



236 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



in penalty and reward ; implied in the very fact of 
sin, in the possibilities of guilt, in all the heinousness 
of transgression, as well as in the beauty of holiness 
and the joys of virtue. 

There is the doctrine of repentance, and the doc- 
trine of regeneration, or the spiritual birth, the birth, 
growth, and maturity of the spirit. 

There is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, in all the 
interest of its nature, and richness of its suggestions, 
so full of personal, practical, needed life to each one 
of us. 

There is the doctrine of faith ; not altogether as 
an absolute sentiment, but connecting itself with ev- 
ery other doctrine and feeling. 

There is the doctrine of election ; not a narrow, 
partial limitation of God's grace, but that large, lib- 
eral, comprehensive scheme of mercy, which em- 
braced Gentile as well as Jew, and which is so lumi- 
nously and cheerfully set forth by the Apostle Paul 

There is the doctrine of Christ's second coming, 
the reproduction of his image in the heart and life 
of the disciple, replete with valuable thought and 
stirring significance. 

There is the doctrine of kindness towards wicked 
men, and patient efforts in the spirit of love to win 
them back to virtue ; the doctrine of compassion for 
the poor, the intemperate, the slave, the Indian, the 
oppressed, and the unfortunate of every name. 

Time would fail me to enumerate a tithe of the 
glorious doctrines of the blessed Gospel of the Son 
of God. The Bible is full of them ; he that runs 
may read. .Every word of Christ is a doctrine. Ev- 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



237 



ery act of Christ is a doctrine. \Ye are not turned 
over, we will not turn these children over, to musty, 
dry, cheerless, metaphysical fables and genealogies ; 
we come rather to themes which drop as the rain 
and distil as the dew; we open to the fair page of 
heaven's own writ, and there enter upon subjects of 
most engaging interest Avhich have been accumulat- 
ing from eternity for the use of rational man. Let 
me urge upon you all a more familiar acquaintance 
with the Bible. And if you do not always find the 
doctrines of which I have spoken systematically and 
formally treated there, be sure they will be found 
appearing more or less distinctly in every lesson you 
may give out. Let them become clear conceptions, 
distinct ideas, in the minds of the children. Let 
them be impressed upon them as great central relig- 
ious principles. Let them be intellectually under- 
stood and heartily believed. I would have every 
child as familiar with these great doctrines as he is 
with that fundamental political doctrine that all men 
are created free and equal, or with the arithmetical 
doctrine that multiplication is the reverse of division. 

But what shall we do with those fables and gene- 
alogies to which reference has be^n made ? Of 
course they are not to be taught, but to be sedu- 
lously untaught. They circumscribe us on every 
hand, they accost us at every turn, — Trinity and 
total depravity. I would have the mind of the child 
disabused in respect of these, and their corollaries. 
I would have those passages clearly explained in 
which any fancy such ideas to be taught. They are 
not the organic doctrines of the New Testament^ 



238 



THE SABBATH SCHOOL. 



and have only been superinduced by the misinterpre- 
tations of men. Will anybody, dares anybody, af- 
firm that the Trinity is a leading, or even a subsidi- 
ary, doctrine or teaching of Jesus ? There is lan- 
guage, I know, that seems to imply the Roman 
Catholic notion of transubstantiation, that the bread 
of the communion really becomes Christ's body ; 
there is language that seems to import that a child 
must really hate his mother; and language that ap- 
parently teaches that a righteous man shall always 
be a rich man, and the like. But, I take it, the in- 
telligent teacher in these and all such cases will ex- 
ercise common sense, and especially compare Scrip- 
ture with Scripture. 

This indoctrination is, in the last analysis, inchris- 
tianizatioii ; it is focalizing upon the mind of the 
child those heaven-born truths which are scattered 
all through the pages of nature and revelation ; it is 
binding as with hooks of steel the soul and mind of 
Jesus to the souls and minds of the children. 

The prophecy of Paul has been fulfilled, that the 
time would come when nien would not endure sound 
doctrine, but, after their own lusts, should take to 
themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they 
should turn away their ears from the truth, and be 
turned unto fables. By all the solemnities of God, 
by all the value of the soul, by Tabor and Gethsem- 
ane, by the cross and by the crown, are we bound 
to revive and to relume, to teach and to preach, the 
same sound doctrine of which the Apostle speaks. 



SERMON XIII. 



$ — - 

THE COMMUNION. 

WHAT 3IEAX YE BY THIS SERVICE'? — ExoduS xii. 26. 

This question refers to the Passover, an institu- 
tion the origin of which is related in the chapter 
from which the text is taken, and one devoutly cher- 
ished by the Jews from the time of its foundation, 
fifteen hundred years before Christ, and still kept up 
wherever that singular race is dispersed over the face 
of the earth. At the time of its introduction, Moses 
says to the people : " This day shall be for a memo- 
rial ; and ye shall keep it a feast unto the Lord 
throughout your generations ; ye shall observe this 
thing for an ordinance to thee and thy sons for ever. 
And it shall come to pass, w^hen your children say 
unto you. What mean ye by this service ? that ye 
shall say. It is the sacrifice of the Lord's passover, 
who passed over the houses of the children of Israel 
in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians and deliv- 
ered our houses." 

The universality of the observance of this sacra- 
ment among the Jews is a point worthy to be re- 
marked. It was kept by men, women, and chil- 



240 



THE COMMUNION. 



dren, indiscriminately ; families, villages, cities, unit- 
ed in the celebration. The blood of the paschal 
lamb was sprinkled on every house. All persons 
partook of the unleavened bread. So careful were 
they that the entire community should be included, 
and so fearful were they lest some should refuse to 
join in its celebration, that from a passage in Num- 
bers it has been conjectured that, if any one should 
wilfully abstain from the service, he might be put to 
death. If an individual were sick, or on a journey, 
or otherwise unavoidably prevented from participa- 
tion in it, he was not allowed to pretermit it entirely, 
but only to postpone its due observance. 

Our Saviour, we read, would keep the Passover 
with his disciples. A room was prepared, the proper 
materials were collected, and they all reclined to- 
gether around the table. At that time, and under 
those circumstances, still preserving the great idea of 
the thing, he changes a Jewish into a Christian or- 
dinance. He oSers the bread, which represents his 
body broken, and the wine, wherein is signified his 
blood ; in other words, he invites a participation in 
that which symbolizes his entire sacrifice in life and 
death for the good of the world, which was the seal 
of the new covenant which God made through him 
with the whole family of man. It is there he says. 
Do this in remembrance of me. Accordingly, soon 
after his death, as we read, the disciples of Christ 
began to keep this festival, thus modified in its fea- 
tures and transformed in its intents, as a memorial 
of their Lord, And we know that the practice, vari- 
ously understood and variously employed, has con- 
tinued from that time to our own day. 



THE COMMUNION. 



241 



We learn, moreover, from history, that in the first 
ages of Christianity, the observance of this Christian 
ordinance was as universal as that of the Passover 
had been among the Jews ; that old and young, 
men, women, and children, belonging to what may 
be called the Christian, in distinction from the Jew- 
ish or Pagan community, united in its celebration. 
We are told that, in the first years of our faith, heads 
of families administered the commemorative bread 
and cup to their households, and parents to their 
children. 

The practice of a general, not to say universal 
communion, prevails even now in a large portion of 
Christendom. We are wont to attribute the idea 
now so prevalent in New England, that only a select 
portion of a Christian congregation should be com- 
municants, while the rest, practically the great mass, 
should keep aloof from this ordinance, — we are 
wont, I say, to impute this idea to our Puritan fore- 
fathers. But this is a great mistake. They, for the 
most part, regarded baptism as an introduction to the 
Church, and as they practised infant baptism, it so 
came about that the mass of the population, in their 
time, were church-members, and, of course, commu- 
nicants. The custom which we are familiar with, 
and which has come to be so common, sprung up 
more than a century after the Pilgrims landed at 
Plymouth. It originated with Whitefield, at the 
time of the Great Awakening, so called, which he 
set in motion between the years 1740 and 1750. I 
do not say that questions touching this matter, 
which Whitefield determined, had not been agitated 

21 



242 



THE COMMUNION. 



before his day. Doubtless they had been. Some 
dispute had akeady arisen among the Colonial cler- 
gy ; but Whitefield put a finishing stroke to it. It 
was a cardinal doctrine with him, that no man should 
be a communicant who had not been miraculously 
converted. From this period dates a series of events 
of no small interest to the New England churches. 
A tone was then given to the popular feeling that 
has lasted to the present hour. From it has resulted 
the singular, anomalous, and lamentable fact, that the 
number of communicants has been decreasing every 
year, until at this moment it bears a less proportion 
to the mass of the population, in New England, than 
ever before. In the year 1650, twenty years after 
the settlement of Boston, there were forty churches 
in New England, with seven thousand seven hun- 
dred and fifty members ; a number which was about 
equal, I think, to the whole of the adult population. 
The innovation of Whitefield, introduced at a crisis 
of high religious excitement, and acting upon ele- 
ments of the most ductile and plastic sort, corrupted 
and perverted the churches. Those who had the 
most repute for zeal and piety adopted it ; the rest 
were stigmatized as secular and profane. No man 
was admitted to church privileges unless he could 
recount, with the precision of a leger, operations 
which are declared in Scripture phrase to be like the 
blowing wind and the growing corn. The clergy 
assumed the jurisdiction of sacred rites. They re- 
ceived and they rejected whomx they chose. Persons 
of sincere piety and spotless life were denied admis- 
sion to the Church. The effect was, on multitudes 



THE COMMUNION. 



243 



of minds, to render the Lord's Supper distasteful, 
and to create a belief that the ordinance was of sec- 
ondary innportance. Men came to the conclusion 
that they could reach heaven without the agency of 
this sacrament. 

It was under circumstances like these that Liberal 
Christianity made its appearance in the history of 
the times. Liberal Christians built churches, settled 
ministers, and provided in all ways for the perpetua- 
tion of religious institutions. But where, alas I is 
the Communion ? It never recovered from the blow 
it had received. It has lingered along in its wound- 
ed state, degraded, neglected, and almost forgotten. 
Years ago, good men, excluded from it, were forced 
to ask, Of what use is it ? Cannot we be saved 
without it ? And so, while they revived and hand- 
ed down to us the primitive and apostolic worship, 
they failed to revive all the primitive and apostolic 
usages. 

Thus, in a short space of time, did the fanaticism of 
one man — eloquent and untiring he certainly was 
— suffice to upset, in these Xew England States, a 
system in some of its principal features as old as 
the patriarchs, which had been remodelled and per- 
petuated by Christ, and which had come down from 
confessors and martyrs, through all phases and fluc- 
tuations of the Church, to the middle of the last cen- 
tury. And such is the perplexed and unhappy posi- 
tion of the Liberal Church at this day. "What is the 
remedy ? I see none but a swift return to the foun- 
dation on which the Prophets and the Apostles stood. 

And now once more the question arises, " What 



244 



THE COMMUNION. 



meaneth this service ? " A summary answer is given 
in the words of Scripture. It is for a sign and a me- 
morial, which shall be to us and to our children for 
ever. In the words of Christ, we do it in remem- 
brance of him. 

But allow me here a little breadth of remark. And 
referring generally to subjects of sentiment and feeling, 
I might ask. Of what use are a multitude of things ? 
For instance. Of what use is it to shake hands, or to 
employ terms of salutation or benediction, in meet- 
ing or parting ? True friendship rests not for proof 
on acts like these, and one may be an arrant hypo- 
crite therein. But suppose these courteous customs 
should cease from human intercourse ; would that 
be well ? Why do we employ the expletive " Sir,'^ 
or " Ma'am," in our affirmations and negations with 
our parents and elders ? The Quakers answer sim- 
ply " No " and " Yes." Would you like to have your 
children imitate that practice ? These things are 
for a sign and a memorial. Of what use is a bow 
when friends pass each other in the sti-eet ? It is 
but a tilt of the vertebrae of the neck, a dash into the 
air of the capital member of the body. Yet, let an 
acquaintance fail thus to testify his recognition, and 
you feel at once what the force of that little move- 
ment is. It is a sign, a memorial. It is a proof of 
familiar recognition, of friendly regard. But it does 
not follow, I admit, that all who bow in passing are 
really your friends. 

I might enumerate quite a list of the habitual 
courtesies of life, and ask, Of what possible use are 
they ? An extreme utilitarianism might be puzzled 



THE COMMUNION. 



245 



to discover it The logic of airy transcendentalism 
on the one hand, or icy materialism on the other, 
well aimed, might demolish the whole code. How 
easy for sarcasm and ridicule to turn them into con- 
tempt. One may be, I shall not take it upon me to 
gainsay, a very good man, he may even love God 
with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, he 
may be industrious, benevolent, philanthropic, and 
never shake hands with anybody or bow when he 
walks the street. But what then ? Shall we dis- 
card or neglect those gentle amenities ? They are 
signs and memorials. They are exponents of ideas ; 
they are expressions of feeling ; they are a kind of 
articulate speech, the universal pantomime of the 
heart 

But may not a man observe all the courtesies of 
manner, and yet be base, most unprincipled at heart? 
Truly he may. One may smile and smile and be a 
villain still. Possibly there are some who put on an 
aspect of politeness, as some do a profession of relig- 
ion, as a convenient and current mask for selfishness, 
duplicity, and fraud. Suppose one should thus rea- 
son with himself: " Where is the use of being cour- 
teous, polite, or civil ? It all amounts to nothing. 
It is nothing, in fact, but words and looks and tone. 
There are certain persons of my acquaintance, very 
finished gentlemen, — they have the reputation of 
being the very mirrors of gentility. But I know them 
well. They are bad men. They covet fields, and take 
them by violence, pervert the judgment of the stran- 
ger, and take the v%^idow's ox for a pledge. For my- 
self, I will never more pretend to civility or courtesy.'' 

21 ^ 



246 



THE COMMUNION. 



What should we think of the reasonableness of such 
a deduction as that ? 

Let us take one or two illustrations from another 
class. There is the marriage ceremony, which we 
might challenge in the same way. What does it 
amount to ? There is not necessarily any heart in 
it. People have been known to join hands, bestow 
rings, and plight their troth, without a particle of 
affection in their hearts. Even the best-intentioned 
vows are easily broken, and scores do not live up to 
their wedding covenant. Why not, then, dispense 
with all these seals and tokens ? 

There is the temperance pledge, to which many 
attach great value and importance. The same ques- 
tion still returns, " Of what real use is it ? " Cannot 
a man be strictly temperate, are there not countless 
numbers of men who are thus temperate, who have 
never taken that pledge ? 

Let me take even so familiar a thing as a letter 
from a friend, from a child if you will, and I ask, 
What does it signify? Your child can love you, 
think of you, cherish the most filial feelings towards 
you, and yet not write you a single line. But if a 
child of yours, long absent, should be thus silent, it 
would be a great grief upon your heart. The letter 
in such cases becomes a sign, an invaluable, joyous 
sign and monument of remembrance and affection. 

So I might take up the whole range of symbolism, 
and show its extent and importance, — how it enters 
into human intercourse, and manifests itself in all 
the circumstances and conditions of our being, and 
seems to exercise an important office in the develop- 



THE COMMUNION. 



247 



ment and history of the race. But whatever I might 
advance on the subject in general, as well as what 
has been already said of particular instances, has an 
application to this question of the utility of the Com- 
munion. Obviously, it is for a sign and a memorial, 
and that, too, of events the most wonderful, and of a 
person the most august, that have illustrated the his- 
tory of our world. We raise a monument to Wash- 
ington, and celebrate his birth with cannon-roar and 
chime of bells, with bonfires, processions, and eulogy. 
Sometimes monuments are erected to public men of 
lesser note, to keep alive and deepen the memory of 
their deeds. And some, no doubt, are ready to say, 
that all memorials of this sort are best preserved in 
the heart, that these outward and material tokens of 
affection and interest ar-e really irrational and useless. 
Yet, as we have already said, a desire for some pal- 
pable expression of this sort is revealed in the con- 
duct of every man every day of his life ; and we 
might justly conclude, that on the whole it approves 
itself to his reason and is agreeable to his nature. 

Undoubtedly the practice may be carried too far. 
A sign may exist where there is nothing signified, it 
may be continued when all true devotion to the object 
commemorated has perished from the mind. A sign 
may originate from puerile or superstitious causes, 
it may be maintained by arts at once vile and mis- 
chievous, it may be employed by bad men for the 
worst of purposes. Romanism, and other collateral 
branches of the Church, if I understand the matter 
right, is full of such perversions. In the English 
Church, I believe, no one can receive the sacred em- 



248 



THE COMMUNION. 



blems except upon his knees. This was ostensibly 
a sign of humility, but it likewise became an instru- 
ment of despotism. But need we in this discussion 
concern ourselves with extravagance and perversion ? 
"We know enough of that exists. Instances will oc- 
cur to almost any mind without the pains of looking 
them up. No good thing has ever yet appeared, that 
has not at some period or other, or in some form or 
other, been abused. 

The case before us is simply this. Christ, — if we 
are not in an error, if we do not mistake in the prem- 
ises, — Christ instituted the Communion Supper as 
a sign and a memorial, to be observed by his follow- 
ers in all generations ; and the brief question is. Will 
we observe it? As rational, consistent men, will 
we yield obedience herein Will we consent to 
this symbolic rite, as we do in so many other in- 
stances in our daily life? The same objections may 
be set up to this as are urged against memorials of 
other sorts ; but as regards the latter, we have seen 
how little weight they are allowed to have. Why, 
then, should we suffer them to embarrass us in re- 
spect to this ? 

There is another consideration bearing upon this 
subject, of no small interest, and in some respects of 
special magnitude, affecting and sinking down into 
our deepest meditations, and awakening the liveliest 
solicitude. I mean, that just at this stage of human 
history, at this precise juncture of popular afTairs, 
when art is busy, and trade m.aketh haste to be rich, 
when innumerable formes of material good occupy 
the hands and absorb the imagination, when politics 



THE COMMUNION. 



249 



is winning the multitudes to its shrine, there is dan- 
ger — shall I not say great danger ? — of our forget- 
ting and wholly neglecting Christian duty, spiritual 
obligations, and the salvation of the soul. Instead 
of diminishing their number, we ought rather to give 
more heed to, and multiply, the signs and memorials 
of a religious faith. And this is what we do in other 
matters. When danger is supposed to threaten the 
political union of the States, when disregard of the 
Constitution or of some enactment of Congress seems 
to be on the increase, then men talk to us the more 
about Washington, they repeat his Farewell Address, 
they print it over and over again, they circulate it in 
all directions ; then they celebrate his bkthday with 
unusual pomp; then the building of his monum.ent 
goes cheerfully forward. All this is thought to be the 
part of wisdom, of discernment, of sound common- 
sense, to say nothing of enlightened and earnest 
patriotism. Who ventures to inquire, in such a case. 
What is the use ? Men feel that there is a use in 
having and employing these signs and memorials. 
But is there no need, is there no propriety, in pre- 
serving and multiplying monuments to Christ, our 
spiritual Saviour ? For, really, if we would but ob- 
serve the commemorative Supper as we should, if we 
would revive a long dormant interest in that tender 
rite, it would be like raising new monuments to Jesus. 

To return to the point to which reference was 
made in the opening of this discourse. The Jewish 
Passover was for all the people ; the Lord's Supper, 
which takes the place of it, is likewise for all the peo- 
ple. This festival is as much for the people as the 



250 



THE COMMUNION. 



Sabbath is, as prayer or preaching is, as the sun and 
the rain are. It would be perfectly absurd, at the 
very least it would be irrational and inhuman, to in- 
stitute a religious sign and memorial, that should not 
be for all the people. What would be thought and 
said, if those who are constructing the monument to 
Washington in the city that bears his name should 
decree that only a limited, a select portion of the 
people, such as the managers themselves might 
deign to choose, should visit and inspect that lofty 
memorial ? 

The Lord's Supper is for a sign and a memorial 
of Christ, — of his character, of his goodness, his 
sacrifice ; it is a sign of God's mercy to us in Christ. 
Moreover, on our part, it is a sign. Of what ? 
That one has been miraculously converted ? There 
is no such thing. It is a sign of a belief in Christ ; 
and we all are to some good degree believers in him,. 
It is a sign of some interest in the Christian salva- 
tion. This is what it is a sign of; it is not positive 
proof, any more than many other signs we employ 
are proofs of what they signify. Keeping the Sab- 
bath is a sign of regard to the God of the Sabbath, 
yet many who observe the day may possibly have 
no such regard. 

It is a sign for us and for our children. Yes I 
That is it. We feel in regard to Washington, in 
regard to our venerated forefathers, that whatever per- 
tains to them is for a sign, not only for us, but also 
for our children. So is this commemorative Chris- 
tian ordinance for the children. This was the idea 
in the Jewish dispensation. It was the idea in the 



THE COMMUNION. 



251 



Christian dispensation. I mean, that the primitive 
disciples, the early Fathers of the Church, adminis- 
tered the sacraments to their children. What, then, 
wait we for ? For George Whitefield and the sen- 
timent with which he inoculated the country ? The 
turn he gave to the popular mind on this subject has 
only rendered the Communion a stumbling-block to 
many, has seriously diminished its influence, and 
threatens the utter extinction of the ordinance in this 
portion of Christendom. For the last forty years re- 
vivals or seasons of extraordinary religious excite- 
ment have alone supplied the dwindling ranks of the 
so-called members of the Church. Since the memo- 
rable year 1831, these unusual phenomena have been 
less and less frequent, and the number of communi- 
cants has been diminishing in an equal ratio. 

But I would that this religious sign and memorial, 
this festive and commemorative Christian rite, might 
more and more abound. There is no danger of a 
liberal, enlightened, rational community making too 
much of it. Indeed, that is not the alternative which 
alarms our fears. The rite exists, it has been author- 
itatively established by Christ himself, it has perpet- 
uated itself in all ages of the Church. We all recog- 
nize its propriety. But it has been obscured, scan- 
dalized ; it lies buried beneath a pile of cant, error, 
and perversion. 

Will we attempt to restore it, my friends ? If we 
do not make the attempt, if Liberal Christians do 
not come to the rescue and rally for its recovery, 
then this Christian ordinance, so far as the New 
England Congregational Church is concerned, is 



252 



THE COMMUNION. 



threatened, I fear, with ultimate and complete ex- 
tinction. 

I would revive it for the intrinsic excellence of its 
subjective power. The Communion is a season of 
great reflective interest ; it suggests deep and solemn 
thoughts ; its prevailing effect is calm, temperate, 
quiet meditation. It makes us serious, but not sad ; 
it subdues without depressing us. If we set a higher 
value on this sacrament, if w^e entered upon it with 
greater freedom, if it were upheld by a more general 
sympathy, if all classes and all ages were unrestrained 
from uniting in it, I venture to say that nothing 
in the varied and eventful history of our lives would 
impart to us more solid satisfaction, or contribute 
more to those indefinable but palpable impressions 
that form the character, and travel on with us from 
youth to manhood and old age. We should antici- 
pate the periods of this holy festival with joy, and 
the experience of them would be savory and inspir- 
ing. In our solitary thought we should recur to 
them with avidity, and at the hour of death we should 
look back upon them with composure and peace. 

I would revive it for the sake of its sanctifying ef- 
fect. It keeps us from sin, and quenches our inclina- 
tion to it ; and this by a very direct and intelligible 
process. It brings us into immediate contact with 
what is holy ; its suggestions are holy, its author is 
holy. When temptation assails us, and the powers 
of darkness threaten our security, if there be a spot 
to which one can flee for refuge, it is the table of the 
Lord. 

I would revive it for the sake of its cementing 



THE COMMUNION. 



253 



element. A free participation in the Communion 
promotes the beauty, the edification, and strength of 
the local Church. What sight could be more pleas- 
ing than this large body of men, women, and children 
fellowshipping one another, banding together for the 
highest spiritual purpose, and bearing testimony to 
their mutual interest in the great salvation ? Hav- 
ing eaten and drunk one with another, having shared 
together the hospitality of our Lord, having sat down 
together in that banqueting-house where the banner 
over us is love, would not our hearts be more close- 
ly knit, our contrarieties be extinguished, and our 
whole life move on in greater harmony and satisfac- 
tion ? Such an exercise would seem to be " an 
opening of the way, a highway for our Lord." Could 
the example spread, if there could be a general and 
devout observance of this rite in every congregation, 
could there be at some season of the year a mass 
Communion, a meeting of the entire city to celebrate 
their Saviour's death, truly we should feel that the 
millennial day had dawned. By such a spectacle our 
youths would early become wedded to the Church, 
nor would the busy pursuits of manhood alienate 
them from it. 

The Communion is not so much a test as an aid 
of character. If it be in any sense the reward of at- 
tainment, it is also the harbinger of hope. Its as- 
pect is not always towards the past, but its gaze is 
also directed to the future, and it points not so much 
to the fruits of past experience as to the crown that 
is to be^acquired. It addresses not a select class, but 
the average condition of men. It does not offer 



254 



THE COMMUNION. 



itself to the ripe believer exclusively, nor does it fol- 
low the incorrigible sinner to compel him to come 
in ; but seating itself, so to speak, within the open 
area of the Chmxh, it benignantly extends its benefits 
to the assembled congregation. 

My friends, I have no undue attachment to the 
rites of the Church. Technically speaking, we have 
but two. Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Protes- 
tantism and Puritanism have made sweeping work 
with the trappings and the furniture of the ojd 
Church. Little is left to us save the bare walls. 
Only these two rites remain. I think our position, 
liberal, rational, intellectual, free, admirably fits us 
to take a just account of them. We may strip them 
of superstition, and still regard them w^ith reverence ; 
we may dissipate the mystery that has hitherto en- 
veloped them, and carefully preserve the original 
structure ; we may rescue them from the dominion of 
a blind faith, and associate them with the analogies 
of the sharpest intellectuality ; we may love them 
without worshipping them, and be benefited by them 
Vv'ithout becoming dupes. We accept, we cherish 
the Commmnion as a means of grace, an institu- 
tion designed to bring and keep us near to Christ, 
an instrumentality, which, like prayer, like the Sab- 
bath, like preaching, God will bless to our redemp- 
tion and ultimate sanctification. 



SEEMON XIV. 



THE GOSPEL: GOOD KEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 

I BEI>'G TOTJ GOOD TIDI^'GS OF GREAT JOT, WHICH SHALL BE 

TO ALL PEOPLE. — Luke ii. 10. 

Good or glad tidings. I would invite attention 
to the word and to the thing. First, the word. 
There are two terms, the Gi'eek, Evangel, and the 
Saxon, Gospel, both meaning, in common English, 
good news, glad tidings. The text may read thus : 
I bring you the Gospel of gi'eat joy. I remark that, 
wherever the word Gospel is found in the New Tes- 
tament, it means this glad tidings, good news. The 
Gospel according to John is the good news accord- 
ing to John. Christ says. Repent and believe the 
Gospel, believe the glad tidings, the joyful intelli- 
gence. Mark commences his history in this wise : 
" The beginning of the Gospel,'' the glad tidings, of 
Jesus Clirist." " Woe to me," says Paul, if I preach 
not the Gospel," the good news. 

Again, the word to preach, in the New Testament, 
is from the same evayyeXiov^ evangel, and means 
to announce news. The two words, preach the 



256 



THE GOSPEL *. 



Gospel^ are in the original often contained in one 
word, meaning to announce, proclaim, declare intel- 
ligence. We read, The disciples departed, preach- 
ing the Gospel," that is, announcing, making the glad 
announcement, telling the tale. The noun evangel^ 
gospel^ means good news, and the verb evangelize^ 
gospelize^ means to announce or proclaim good news. 
We read of Philip the Evangelist, and some proph- 
ets, some evangelists," that is, annunciators, messen- 
gers. Our word angel comes from this same root, 
eu-angel ; and angel means literally a messenger or 
relater of news. There is in the Bible no adjective 
evangelical. There is evangel^ good news ; evange- 
lize^ to announce good news ; evangelists, the annun- 
ciator of good news ; but no evangelicaL Evangel- 
ical is a word of modern composition. It really 
means that which relates to the glad tidings. An 
evangelical church, or an evangelical doctrine, is a 
church or doctrine containing the good news. In 
the text, then, the angel or messenger of God, said, 
I evangelize you. I tell you good news, glad tidings. 
So far, then, the word evangel, gospel, tidings, means 
no more than the word 7ieivs, intelligetice, informa- 
tion. 

Secondly, the thing. What was this good news, 
this Gospel ? What did the angel announce ? For 
a newspaper to say. We have received some valuable 
information, some very interesting news, is saying 
nothing. What is the information, or news, is the 
point that alone concerns us. What was the pleas- 
ant intelligence of the heavenly messenger? He 
came a great way, as we may well suppose, on an 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



257 



important errand. What was the errand ? In plain 
words, what was the Gospel ? Christ went about 
preaching the Gospel, announcing the glad tidings. 
What did Christ preach or announce ? His last com- 
mand was. Go, preach the Gospel, go, tell the glad 
tidings, to all nations. What pleasant intelligence 
was to be conveyed to all nations ? I say the word 
evangel, gospel, news, intelligence^ means nothing ; 
it is simply a vehicular term. The great question is, 
What is the news or evangel, what is the thing con- 
veyed to us? "Glad tidings"; tidings of what? 
The messenger has arrived, and he has something to 
tell us; tell us what? It is something good, it is 
good news, an evangel, a gospel. We are all the 
more curious to know what it is. 

Is it, as our Universalist brethren teach, that all 
wall go to heaven when they die ? That certainly 
were good news. Is it, as our Calvinistic brethren 
teach, that only certain ones, the specially elect, the 
irresistibly moved, will be saved ? That would 
hardly fulfil the promise of the messenger, since 
he says it is good news for all people. Is it, as our 
Roman Catholic brethren teach, that such only as 
are baptized will be saved ? I think it is not any of 
these things. Is it news that a babe is born, Christ 
the Saviour ? But that does not explain its full pur- 
port. For still the inquiry arises. What is that little 
babe to do ? How is he to promote the happiness 
of mankind ? It is news of peace on earth. Glori- 
ous, ecstatic intelligence! But merely announcing 
peace does not silence the noise of battle, or beat 
swords into ploughshares or spears into pruning- 

22^ 



258 



THE GOSPEL *. 



hooks. There is a mystery in this affair, a mystery 
of the Gospel or good news, not yet perfectly solved. 
It is called the Gospel or good news of the blessed 
God ; that is, it comes from God ; and the Gospel or 
good news of Christ, because it relates to Christ; 
and the Gospel or good news of salvation, because 
it concerns our deliverance from sin and evil. But 
none of these meet the question fully. 

By all the writers of the New Testament, it is 
called the Gospel, or good news, of the kingdom, and 
of the kingdom of God. And as I have said the 
word good neivs is contained in the original words 
rendered to preach, so where it says Christ and the 
Apostles went preaching the kingdom of God, the 
same is meant as if it said they went announcing 
the good news or proclaiming the glad intelligence 
of the kingdom of God. This, then, brings the sub- 
ject a little more into the region of familiar ideas. 
The mystery begins to unfold. It is something 
about a kingdom, a kingdom of God here on the 
earth. Now we read that the law, the Mosaic law, 
and the prophets, were until John, but since that 
time the kingdom of God is preached, evangelized, 
proclaimed. Something new is to take place. A 
new dispensation of God in the affairs of men is 
promised, and it is called the kingdom or sovereignty 
or intimate rule and communication of God. This 
kingdom Christ went everywhere preaching, pro- 
claiming; he told all his disciples to preach it, he 
ordered it to be preached to all nations under heav- 
en ; he illustrated it in his teachings by the mustard- 
tree, a farmer sowing seed, leaven, hidden treasure, 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



259 



a fisherman's net. He said he that was least in that 
kingdom was greater than John ; that this kingdom 
was not here or there, but in us ; that little children 
belonged to it. The good news, gospel, or evangel, 
then, was that God, Jehovah, the Supreme One, was 
to be sovereign, legislator, father, the portion and 
hope of all men. '* So," says the angel, " I bring 
you good news of great joy, which shall be to all 
people.'' So Christ says to all men. Repent, reflect, 
change your minds, ponder deeply the matter, for 
the kingdom of heaven is at hand. "We read that 
Joseph of Arimathea was one who waited for the 
kingdom of God. There was much curiosity aroused 
on the subject, and many misapprehensions ; people 
did not perfectly understand Christ, and they begun 
to ask him when the kingdom of God should come. 
When Paul was taken to RomiC, and the people be- 
gan to crowd about him, to hear what he had to say, 
we read that he expounded and testified the kingdom 
of God unto them. 

But this is called neivs. What was there new 
about it. Had not God always reigned in the earth ? 
In a sense he had. But there were many false gods, 
there was much superstition, much wrong and vio- 
lence. People had not the knowledge of the one 
true God. They did not know of the infinite, eter- 
nal, unitary Truth and Goodness, They did not 
know that God really loved them, that the Creator of 
all and the immanent Life of the universe was their 
Father in heaven. The little children in the wilds 
of Scythia v»^ere never taught to pray. Our Father 
which art in heaven. The armed phalanxes of the 



260 THE GOSPEL I 

Roman empire had never been taught to feel that all 
men were their brothers. It was news to the Athe- 
nians, that God who made the world needed not 
temples to dwell in, and that all men were made of 
one blood. It was news to the Samaritans, that a per- 
son of Jewish extraction could imagine God could be 
worshipped anywhere else than at Jerusalem. The 
Syrophenician woman thought her plg,ce was with 
the dogs under the table. The Christian movement 
was a novelty in the earth. 

But it was not wholly a new thing. It was indeed 
a very old thing, — so old, men had lost the memory 
of it. Let us remark that Paul says the Gospel, the 
good news, was preached before unto Abraham. A 
very long time ago, then, this thing had been spoken 
of. What was this old evangel, this message to the 
ancient Patriarch ? The Gospel had been preached 
unto Abraham, saying. In thee shall all the nations 
of the earth be blessed. The tenor of the Gospel or 
glad tidings to Abraham was precisely similar to 
that of the angels at the Nativity, or that by Jesus 
Christ. Here there is a remarkable coincidence. If 
Paul is to be trusted, the same Gospel or glad tidings 
of which Christ was the minister had been announced 
years before to Abraham. The Gospel or good news 
to Abraham, summarily stated, was the annunciation 
of God's most gracious purposes towards the whole 
human race. The Gospel or good news by Jesus 
Christ was, then, a very old thing. At the same time 
it was a new thing, inasmuch as the great mass of 
mankind had never heard or dreamed of it, and those 
who were in proper possession of the fact, the Jews, 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



261 



seemed wholly to have forgotten it. God did enter 
into covenant with Abraham and with his seed for 
ever, and did promise that in him and his seed all 
nations should be blessed. 

This covenant seems, I say, to have been forgot- 
ten. The record of it, preserved, indeed, in the sa- 
cred books of the Jews, was overlooked, or at least 
misapprehended. Here was a guaranty of universal 
grace, so to say, under the hand and seal of Jeho- 
vah, which slumbered amidst the musty archives of 
things that were. There was no unitary God, no 
unitary humanity, no unitary spirit. The Jews 
loathed the Samaritans, the barbarians yelled in the 
woods, the Romans ravaged the world. Yet thought- 
ful minds had ever remembered these things ; the 
fires of a true philanthropy burned in here and 
there a breast. There were those in every nation 
who feared God and worked righteousness. Many 
a heart presaged the better day coming. It was im- 
possible for a Jew even to read the words of Isaiah 
or the other prophets, without a presentiment of a 
change at hand. 

Under these circumstances, Luke introduces us to 
the two family groups, that of the priest Zacharias, 
supposed to be at Hebron in the hill-country of 
Judea, and of the carpenter Joseph, at Nazareth. 
The wives of these two persons, Elizabeth and Mary, 
who were cousins, became miraculously with child. 
Mary goes to Hebron to visit her cousin. All par- 
ties trembled with anticipation. Great events were 
astir, in which they were particularly interested. Al- 
ready the promise of the angel to Mary was, that 



262 



THE GOSPEL : 



that which should be born of her should be called the 
Son of the Highest, that he should rule over the 
house of Jacob, and that of his kingdom there should 
be no end. Now, Mary? filled with a holy spirit? 
utters these remarkable words : I rejoice in Jeho- 
vah ; surely, in what is about to transpire, God is 
very gracious unto us. His mercy is on them that 
fear him. from generation to generation. He hath 
holpen, or in this he does help his servant Israel, as 
he spake to our /others, to Abraham, and to his seed 
forever. Presently Elizabeth's full time came, and 
the neighbors assembled to congratulate with her on 
the event of the birth. The child John is treated 
after the manner of their law. Zacharias, the father, 
who had been dumb, regained his speech, and in the 
midst of the wondering company, filled with a holy 
spirit, being spiritually moved, blesses the Lord God 
of Israel, in that he had raised up a horn of salva- 
tion to the people, and that the dayspring was about 
dawning on the world, to give light to them that sit 
in darkness and in the shadow of de^th. the Gentiles; 
to perforin the raercij promised to our fathers, and to 
remember his // ' nant, the oath which he sware 

to our father A^:..-::--:i. Mary leaves Hebron, and 
we next hear of her at Bethlehem, where Christ 
is born. And now the angels appear, using the 
words of our text : T bring you the Gospel, the 
^ood tidings of great joy, which shall be to all 
people." 

I submit that here is a remarkable, a significant 
concatenation of events. The old Abrahamic cove- 
nant is kept in view from beginning to end. It all 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



263 



turns, in the minds of parties concerned at least, on 
the oath sworn to Abraham, that in him should all 
the nations of the earth be blessed. This was the 
Gospel, the good news, preached before to him ; this 
was the Gospel iMoses recognized when he said, A 
prophet like unto me shall the Lord your God raise 
up unto you " ; this was the Gospel reflected in all 
the utterances of the prophets ; this was the Gospe], 
the glad tidings, the angel Gabriel announced to 
Elizabeth ; this was the Gospel or good tidings the 
angel of the Lord announced to the shepherds ; this 
was the Gospel or good news Christ and his Apos- 
tles went everywhere preaching. Finally and sum- 
marily, this is THE Gospel, the evangel, the good 
news. In other words, the news was, as we have 
seen, that the kingdom of God was come, a univer- 
sal, divine, glorious kingdom, to embrace all nations ; 
or, in previous style of language, it was that the cov- 
enant, the old Abrahamic covenant, that had been 
narrowed to Judea, was to enlarge its boundaries so 
as to include the whole human race. 

The first preacher of the Gospel was Jehovah, in 
the annunciation to Abraham ; the next, in the 
way of expectation and forecast, was Isaiah ; the 
next, the angels mentioned by Luke ; the next, Jesus ; 
and after him, the Apostles. Here is one continuous 
thing, so to say, in the Divine mind, partially devel- 
oped in the course of ages by holy men of old, who 
spake as they were moved by a pure and heavenly 
spirit, and brought perfectly to light in the Son of 
IMary. Now the purpose of Jehovah begins to work 
its way in human affairs ; now it initiates itself into 



264 



THE GOSPEL : 



human history. Christ, who studied the mind of 
God, who was ever in communion with the Spirit of 
God, after his baptism and unction, in the ripeness 
of his years, and perfect growth in grace, endowed 
with special powers, commences the labor of the in- 
auguration of the empire of the Supreme. The one 
God, the true doctrine of whom the Jews had ever 
preserved, shall reign over the mixed varieties and 
multiplied shapes of thought and opinion. The wor- 
ship of the one Infinite Intelligence, that made 
heaven and earth, shall enter alike the polished tem- 
ples of the Greeks and the rustic fanes of the Druids. 
Tbe partition-walls that have so long divided the 
human family shall be broken down. All are the 
offspring of one God, all are made of one blood, and 
universal love shall override the boundaries of states 
and supplant the strifes of neighborhoods. Neither 
Jewish nor Gentile altar need any longer burn with 
fire, or reek with blood ; for God, who is a spirit, is to 
be worshipped in spirit and in truth. Once, when the 
earth was filled with violence, God destroyed it with 
a flood. He will do so no more. There forever 
hangs his bow in the clouds, the token of his cove- 
nant to this effect. He will bless and save mankind. 
Even the Gentiles, who have been so long strangers 
from the covenant of promise, shall be so no more, 
but shall be fellow-heirs and citizens of the house- 
hold of faith. The wild olive shall be grafted into 
the cultured stock. This Vv^as a sore point with the 
Jews. They insisted that none but such as had been 
circumcised and kept the law should be reckoned of 
the common body. This was the trying point with 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



265 



Christ. The advocacy of this principle, so funda- 
mental to the Divine plan, cost him his life, as it did 
that of Stephen. 

We speak of Christianity as a new religion ; it 
was in important respects both new and old. We 
speak of the new covenant or testament ; it was also 
an old one, which God sware unto om' father Abra- 
ham. Now the Gospel is not that men should re- 
pent ; it is the good news that the pale of the Divine 
covenant was enlarged, and men were urged to repent 
and change their manner of life, and conform to the 
new conditions. So Christ preached that men should 
repent, for the kingdom of heaven was at hand. So 
men were everywhere called to repent, change their 
minds, reform their ways, and practically accept the 
good news. Nor, again, is the Gospel faith ; it is, I 
say, good news, and men were required to have faith 
in the intelligence thus brought to them, and receive 
it into their souls, and act upon it in their lives. 
Abraham believed the Gospel, the good news that 
was announced to him, truly and fully believed what 
God told him, and this faith of his w^as accounted 
unto him for righteousness ; in other words, an excel- 
lence acceptable to God. The faith is one thing, 
and the intelligence on which that faith acts is wholly 
another thing. 

To preach the Gospel is not the same thing as to 
preach faith and repentance ; to preach the Gospel 
is to preach the good news of God's gracious pur- 
pose to be the covenant God of the whole race. 
That is the Gospel, and faith and repentance are its 
auxiliaries, not its essence. For one to repent and 

23 



266 



THE GOSPEL : 



believe the Gospel is to repent and believe the good 
news, and enter into the covenant of God. 

There are those words, " Before Abraham was, I 
am," — words that have puzzled us, but which yet 
contain an august, beautiful meaning. There is no 
reference to the corporeal preexistence of Christ. 
Before the time of Abraham, Christ says, these ideas 
which I announce, this Divine purpose of blessing 
all nations which I cherish, this great object for which 
I live and am ready to die, existed ; it existed in the 
nature of things, it moved in the thoughts of all the 
good and great of ancient time ; especially was it 
part of the everlasting decrees of Jehovah. Ifc pre- 
sented itself to Abraham and to all the prophets 
after him, and in me is it about to come to pass. 
Before Abraham was, I am ; that which I represent 
existed. The Gospel is preached now, and it was 
preached before to Abraham. 

It is of course obvious that the word Gospel is fre- 
quently used not only for news, but for the substance 
of that news ; it passes from the messenger to the 
message. It often passes from the mere announce- 
ment of the fact of intelligence into the statement of 
what that intelligence was, and stands for both of 
these things. Yet it adheres to the fundamental 
point, that the news was God's purpose to bless all 
nations. 

Now this kingdom of God, this expanded cove- 
nant, concerns human beings ; it brings men into a 
certain attitude to God and to one another. Christ 
is the mediator, agent, of this new order of things, 
and all assume an especial relation to him. Grouped 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



267 



in this new position, coming together in this divine 
manner, with God over all and Christ the great 
leader, human beings constitute what in Scripture is 
called a Church, or the assemblage, the great society 
and fellowship of human beings. And Christ says, 
" On this rock will I build my Church." Church, 
empire of God, holy covenant relations, are tanta- 
mount terms. This Church, what we now call the 
Christian Church, takes in Jew and Greek, barbarian 
and Scythian, bond and free; families, communities, 
whole nations. The Gospel or good news was that 
the great mass of human beings were comprehended 
in the Divine plans. This is essential, obvious in all 
Scripture. The Gospel means this, or it means ab- 
solutely nothing. 

What the angels came to announce, then, was 
precisely such a purpose. This is the mystery of the 
Gospel, and nothing else is that mystery. As Paul 
says, I have come into the full knowledge of the 
mystery of Christ, which in other ages was not made 
known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed 
unto the holy apostles and prophets, teachers, that 
the Gentiles should be felloic-heirs, and of the same' 
bod?/, and partakers of God's promise, the old Abra- 
hamic promise, in Christ. And to me is given to 
preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of 
Christ, to make all men see what is the fellowship, 
the commonness of the mystery which from the be- 
ginning of the world had been hid in God, who cre- 
ated all things by Jesus Christ, who did all the great 
work by Jesus. The angels at the Nativity came 
flushed and palpitating with this mystery, the myste- 



268 



THE GOSPEL 



rious intelligence that liad been so long hid, which 
was, which solely was, which simply was, that not the 
Jews alone, but the Gentiles, that all nations, through 
Christ, should be blessed of God. This was the mys- 
tery that angels desired to look into, this was what 
had haunted the hopes and hearts of good men in 
all ages. 

But how should it come about ? How shall these 
others become with us partakers and fellow-heirs ? 
How shall the pale of brotherhood and love be en- 
larged ? Christ shall do it. Unto you is born this 
day. in the city of David, a Saviour, a deliverer, one 
who shall extricate you from your sad dilemma and 
save you from the dreadful consequences of your 
sins ; a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory 
of my people Israel'' I The secret is at last out, the 
mystery is revealed, the oath sworn to Abraham shall 
yet be fulfilled. The news has come, the glad tidings, 
the Gospel of the abounding grace of God is now to 
be made known. Christ comes to preach this Gos- 
pel ; he will proclaim the glad tidings, he will un- 
dertake the work of covenant enlargement, he will 
establish God's kingdom in the earth, he will build 
upon the deep foundations the Church Universal. 
To-day is Christmas, Christ's festival occasion ; we 
celebrate the initiation of these wonderful events. 
The sole reason why we, descendants of the barbar- 
ous Anglo-Saxon tribes, uncircumcised Gentiles, are 
permitted to meet here to-day, in this pure, elevated, 
civilized way, is, that Christ did break down the 
Jewish pale, and let the covenant blessings of God 
flow over the world, Christ might have lived and 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



269 



died as he was born, a Jew, a good Jew, pious, be- 
nevolent, exemplary, loving. That was not his mis- 
sion ; that was not why God raised him up ; that 
would not have accomplished the oath sworn to 
Abraham ; it would have left the world just as he 
found it. No ; through prayers and tears in his 
own soul, through temptations, through exhaustion 
and weariness, he must advance to his great work, 
even if the vista terminate in a dreadful hill, sheet- 
ed with darkness and surmounted with a cross ; even 
if his blood, every pulse of which beat with love for 
humanity, by human hands should be torturously 
\\Tun2: from his heart. 

It was suitable that the Gospel, the good news, 
should be proclaimed of angels, in mid-air. They 
rose above the walls of Jerusalem, they stood aloft 
where they could overlook the boundaries of Jewry ; 
the whole earth was, as it were, spread out beneath 
their feet; and they flung the rosy token, the glad > 
voice of salvation, to remotest nations, when they 
declared the Evangel was for all the people. 

When the angels sung their Messianic hymn of 
peace on earth, good-will toward men ; when, in 
after years, Christ sat with his disciples on the moun- 
tain, and opened to them the great principles of his 
universal kingdom ; when Paul, on his way to Da- 
mascus, stricken by that marvellous apparition, re- 
ceived the commission which distinguished him as 
the Apostle of the Gentiles ; — in the North of Ger- 
many, near the mouth of the Elbe, on the neck of 
the Danish peninsula and a few adjacent islands, 
dwelt a people of nomadic, Scythian origin. Their 

23* 



270 THE gospel: 

abode was a tract of alternate marshes and wooded 
mountains; the shore was lashed and darkened by 
the wild storms that sweep down the northern seas. 
They had a blonde complexion, light hair, and blue 
eyes. Their clothes were short, and made of skins, 
they wore their hair of a great length, their faces 
were painted and tattooed after the manner of the 
New-Zealanders. They lived in huts woven of 
brush and plastered with clay, and sometimics made 
their abode in caves of the earth. They were igno- 
rant, rude, idolatrous, and addicted to superstition. 
They described the Supreme Being as the father of 
combats and slaughter, and reckoned those his fa- 
vorite children who fell on the field of battle. They 
possessed a free and resolute spirit, which signalized 
itself by alternate deeds of reckless daring and en- 
sanguined ferocity. They sacrificed human beings 
to their Gods. 

Such were the Anglo-Saxons prior to their inva- 
sion of Britain. They ultimately became a body of 
pirates, as terrible as the world has ever known ; they 
scourged every sea with the fear of their name, and 
the savageness of their assaults. Of these people, 
in a direct line, are we descendants. Yet for these, 
too, Christ came. Following them in their career of 
conquest, the message of heavenly love crossed the 
British Channel; and while they were laying the 
foundations of a new empke on English soil, the 
truths of his Gospel came and dwelt among them. 
These barbarous tribes were embraced in God's 
covenant. They, too, were included among the na- 
tions to whom the Gospel was to be preached. 



GOOD NEWS TO ALL PEOPLE. 



271 



Through that eternal purpose of God, which made 
all nations to be partakers of his grace, we behold 
ourselves rescued from the thraldom of ancient su- 
perstition, purged of bloody rites, elevated above huts 
and caves and a lawless buccaneer life, and permit- 
ted this day to offer a pure worship to the Universal 
Father in a civilized sanctuary. Thus I trace the 
progress of the great Evangel; thus I see unfolded 
the magnificent projects of Jesus of Nazareth ; thus I 
discern the divinity of the mission of the Son of 
God. I this day rejoice in that free grace which, 
breaking down the barriers of sectarian exclusiveness, 
reached and reconciled us who were aliens from the 
commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the cove- 
nant of promise, and makes us fellow-citizens with 
the saints, and of the household of God, according 
to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Jesus 
Christ our Lord. 



APPENDIX. 



NOTE A. 

The associated action referred to by Mr. Judd in his 
letter, from which a quotation is given in the Preface to this 
volume, may be seen in the following extract from the 
Preamble to the Constitution of " The Association of 
THE Unitarian Church of Maine," which was unani- 
mously adopted by the Unitarian Convention held in Port- 
land in September, 1852. 

" We, the Unitarian Christians of Maine, ourselves and 
our posterity, are a Church ; a part of the Church Uni- 
versal, of the Church of God and Christ ; a Church Con- 
gregational, Evangelical, Apostolic. We are the Church, 
not of creeds, but of the Bible ; not of a sect, but of Hu- 
manity ; seeking not uniformity of dogma, but communion 
in the religious life. We embrace in our fellowship all 
who will be in fellowship with us. 

" Locally, and in a limited sense, a collection or society 
of Christians is a church. 

" These Christians, with their families, uniting in regular 
assembly, for religious worship, instruction, growth, and 
culture, having the ordinances and a pastor, constitute a 
parochial church. 

" These Christians, with their famihes, in any city, town, 
or precinct of the State, not having the forms and means 



274 



APPENDIX. 



of regular religious service, and without a pastor, consti- 
tute an unparocMal church. 

"These several churches, considered as a whole, consti- 
tute THE Unitarian Chukch of Maine." 



NOTE B. Page 199. 

Mr. Judd, in the very commencement of his ministry, 
felt that the mere number of cliurch-meiiibers^ according 
to the prevailing use of that term, was no true test of the 
piety or Christian virtues of the people he had in charge ; 
and holding that no believer in Christianity should be iso- 
lated from the Christian Church, he urged upon all the 
duty and the privilege of observing all the Christian ordi- 
nances. His continually increasing interest in this vital 
point led to the full development of his faith in the -Birth- 
right Church. 

In the fall of 1852 he prepared a condensed statement of 
his idea of the basis of a true church-organization, for the 
consideration of all the members of his parish, and for the 
acceptance and signature of all who should approve it. 
Several social meetings were subsequently held, from week 
to week, for a general discussion of the principles therein 
set forth, and a free expression of the most reserved minds 
was thus obtained. After earnest and mature deliberation, 
a vote was finally taken at an unusually full meeting, and 
the result was an almost unanimous voice of approval. 

It was this vote to w^hich Mr. Judd alludes in the Discourse 
to which this note belongs. 6 8 3 

The statement referred to was afterward engrossed in a 
Register prepared for the purpose ; and the names of 
nearly every family constituting Christ Church have been 
subscribed to it. 




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